Networking

I have done some soul searching recently and realised that I have been holding myself back. I've been adamant that I will find a way to pay my own way through bar school, support myself completely and not owe my eventual success (positive thinking) to anyone but myself. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with that attitude, except that I've been letting this determination get in the way of taking up opportunities that will help me when they present themselves. Where people have offered to help me I've turned them down. A family friend offered to pay my BVC deposit as a Birthday Present and I said no. I drink with a number of Barristers on a weekly basis and I have never once asked them to help me with work experience or CV advice or anything else because it feels a bit like begging.

Part of it has been my not wanting to be hypocritical. I go on and on at length about the advantages placed at the feet of rich kids who know all the right people etc etc, so to use my own networks surely isn't much better than that? But really, I've just been being too proud to ask for help. I think it has a lot to do with my upbringing, not just in the sense that I'm from a poor background, but also because I don't have the nicest mother in the world, and she has always tried to take my achievements away from me and make out that I owe her something because I did well at school. So I have a bit of a fear that if I accept help from somebody, in 10 years time, it will come back to haunt me.

On Friday, I finally saw sense. Barristers are self-employed. You are a "business", and there is nothing wrong in my mind in making use of networks for business opportunities. I do it everyday in my 9-5 job and it is what gives our company an edge over the competition. So I have decided to try and let go of this particular hang up, because the reality is it doesn't make a difference to anyone but myself whether or not I accept the help of others.

Within hours of making this decision, I have been able to arrange a mini-pupillage and a week's marshalling and got some advice about my CV. So from where I'm sitting, not a bad decision. If it is hypocritical, and I'm not sure it really is, at least I've not been paying Oxbridge Law to apply for pupillage for me! That would be hypocritical, and very very sad.

On another note, in my last post I mentioned that I wouldn't be posting for a while as Lovely Boy is staying with me and I wanted to keep the blog a secret... I failed miserably, caving in to him yesterday. He's so stuck on which GDL provider to go with (he has a choice between BPP, CoL and Kaplan), and I've been giving him advice based on what I've read from other blogs, which has confused him because he had no idea where it was all coming from. Plus I just can't keep secrets and was desperate to tell him as soon as I clapped eyes on him! I'm so weak!! If anyone has any advice for me to pass onto him, please drop me a comment. I'm sure he'll start reading this blog now to check up on the horrible things I have to say about him anyway, so he'll definitely get it.