Visit to the Royal Courts of Justice
At Easter, three of our students (Hannah Bolton, Georgia Lydra and Sania Hussain) visited the Royal Courts of Justice in London. This was part of their work experience placement and they were accompanied by James Jarvis, Barrister at Silver Fox Chambers, Worcester.
Hannah said: “When we first arrived at Silver Fox Chambers, James sat us down and began asking us questions as if we were in an interview which was really useful as it helped us prepare for real ones in the future. Then we moved on to critically analysing two real cases, acting as a barrister and looking at them from the defendant and the claimant’s point of views: we thought about how we would try to defend a client that has holes in their statement as well as learning how to pick out those holes in a statement!
On the second day we went to London to visit the Law Society and Royal Courts of Justice – where we sat in on two sentencing appeal cases. We looked around the middle temple and had lunch there too. In the afternoon we sat in on a cross-examination of someone on trial for murder at the Old Bailey which was the most exciting part of the day in my opinion. It was really interesting to see how the prosecutors asked the defendant questions as if they were telling a story of what they thought had happened that day as a way of actually addressing the jury. Finally, we looked at the Inner Temple and Lincoln’s Inn (two of the four Inns of Court which all barristers belong to).
On the third and final day we cross-examined each other as the claimant on one of the cases we did on the first day about the car accident and practiced how to get our versions of the story across to the pretend jury – just as the prosecutor did in the murder trial. In the afternoon we practiced giving speeches, thinking about how we come across to the audience and how to control the room – I found this to be great as it raised my confidence when it comes to public speaking!
We had a great time with James and recommend getting work experiences like this to everyone!”