Law School Bulletin March 2024

Welcome to your March student newsletter. Ramadan Mubarak to all our students who are currently observing Ramadan, and Happy Easter to those of you who will be celebrating Holy Week.

March is an exciting time of year for all of us, particularly for our finalists who are preparing for their last assessments at Exeter - good luck to all of you! This is the final newsletter of term before our Easter break, and in this month's edition we have some useful tips about gaining work experience, news of a new Students' Guild Society and details of the Law School Quiz Night.

Enjoy the final weeks of term, and safe travels to those of you who will be heading home over Easter. 

David

Dr David Yuratich, Deputy Director of Education and Student Experience Law School

📖Education Matters: Exam Prep ✒️

At this stage in your learning you have lots of assessment experience and can use this, and your feedback across modules, to enhance your practice further. Try to identify (with your personal tutor’s support if needed) any skills that might benefit from a bit more attention and work on these. Of course, depending on your optional module choices you may only have a few exams. But don’t be tempted to neglect preparation for exams in favour of coursework – all your assessments need equal attention (relative to their credit-weighting), it is just the nature of the tasks that differ. We provide some of our tips for effective exam preparation here, and Exeter Study Zone (Study Zone (sharepoint.com)) offers further support.

📰News ⌨️

All School Mooting Competition with UELS

Congratulations to all the students who took part in the All-School Moot with UELS. Finalists are pictured above: Millie Walsh, Charlotte Johnstone, HHJ David Tyzack KC, Daniel Millward and Annah Cocker. The winner was Charlotte Johnstone and the runner-up was Daniel Millward. With thanks to David for giving his time to help judge the competition. 

Staff News

Dr Catherine Caine been appointed to the Office for Environmental Protection’s newly formed College of Experts.

Dr Caine will support the Office for Environmental Protection in its role to protect and improve the environment by providing expert insight and advice. The Office for Environmental Protection is a non-departmental public body which was created in 2021 by the Environment Act 2021 to protect and improve the natural environment by holding government and other public bodies to account. Their work covers England and Northern Ireland.

Nominations for Teaching Awards

The annual Students' Guild Teaching Awards is your chance to nominate outstanding members of academic and professional services staff for the ways they contribute to improving the student experience. 

There are various categories including Fairer Society Award, Inspirational Teaching Award, Supervisor of the Year, Educator of the Year, Course of the Year. 

Take a look at their webpage to see all of the categories and make your nomination by 08:00 on Monday 8 April.

🔬Spotlight on Employability 🎓

The Easter holiday provides the perfect chance to be proactive with building your work experience. Here are some ideas you could explore to build valuable employability skills and boost future employment applications:

Virtual Internships: You can gain valuable experience by completing virtual internships. Find more details for sector wide opportunities including Law here: Forage or Bright Network Virtual Internships

Speculative Applications: You could look at making speculative applications to smaller firms who aren't offering formal work experience programmes. Speculative applications are where you suggest the possibility of doing informal work experience or shadowing. You can find out more below:  

My Career Zone Digital Speculative Applications  

Prospects How to Write a Speculative Job Application

Voluntary work: A fantastic opportunity is to offer your skills to charities and organisations, and at the same time build valuable employability skills. In the legal sector you can look into pro-bono opportunities and at Exeter we have the Law Clinic, find out more here. There is also some useful information on pro-bono work here and for general volunteering opportunities across sectors you can find out more and search for opportunities here.

Exeter Award: Our employability achievement award helps you make the most of your professional experience. You'll receive training in valuable professional skills, develop vital workplace experience and learn how to optimise your CVs and application forms. Find out more here.

📆 Opportunities and Events 

Free Work Experience Simulator

Law firm Browne Jacobson has launched a free online scheme which lets you practice your legal skills, carry out tasks and build confidence for your applications. Find all the details here. 

Human Rights Watch Film Festival

Exeter Law School and the Human Rights and Democracy Forum have collaborated with the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (14-24 March 2024) as a Presenting Partner. Students can watch some of these films online for free. Get all the details on our page here.

 🐣 EASTER CASES 🐇

To broaden your legal knowledge we've delved deep into our Easter egg basket to share some old law cases which have a tenuous Easter connection. Read more about this case on Lexis and Westlaw (2012 CSIH 102). We'll have more of them on our Instagram page in the coming days.

📆 Events 🍿

Come along and join in with the Law School Quiz Night. It's a great chance to celebrate the end of term and unwind before the Spring break. Click here to sign up.

✒️Academic Writing Support 📝

A reminder that Exeter Law School has a Royal Literary Fund (RLF) Fellow, a professional writer and editor who is available to help all students improve their academic writing skills.

Chris Wakling is based in the Law School for two days a week and offers 1:1 academic writing tutorials for up to 50 minutes. These are free and confidential bespoke sessions focusing on particular aspects of your written communication.

Possible topics in your session might include:

• essay planning and structuring your argument;
• how to make a draft clearer and more economical;
• rewriting and editing;
• ‘writer’s block’;
• or even just understanding an essay question. 

The sessions are intended to be useful however good your writing is!

The sessions are held in-person on Tuesdays in Boardroom 2 (near the Moot Court), or on Teams on Wednesdays. To arrange a tutorial please email Chris.

Your Voice - NSS

The National Student Survey remains open until Tuesday 30 April for those who have not yet completed it. As well as providing us with valuable feedback about your entire Uni experience, there’s a chance to enter a prize draw with a top prize of £500. There are also ten further prizes of £50 each to be won, and the University will donate £1 to charity for every survey that is completed, via RAG (Raise and Give).

Society News 📢

Congratulations to Michelle Vardanega who has worked to establish a new 'Commercial Awareness' society. She explains its purpose:

"Through dialogue, our society aims to increase students' knowledge about how businesses make money and how they are impacted by current affairs. In this way, students can prepare themselves for employment and stand out amongst other candidates in interviews, for instance. They will also become proactive in engaging with global news and more confident in expressing their opinions."

The group has their first event on Thursday 21 March, at 50.7 (previously known as The Nest) at 6pm. It will involve discussions over pints on topics including the budget, deep fakes, and the war in Gaza.

Follow the new society on Instagram @comawaresocexe

🤳 Law School Socials 😍​​​​

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER LAW SCHOOL

If you would like to see previous editions of the bulletin, they sit on our Law webpages here.  And if you have any suggestions for future editions, or would like to share a story with us, please email lawcomms@exeter.ac.uk. Fin