Results II
Very weird results.
To recap, the possible standard of grade we can achieve at the end of the year is Outstanding, Very Competent, or Competent. To get an Outstanding I must get either an average above 85% overall or six Outstanding marks out of my twelve assessments. So far I had two results in December, from Conference and Legal Research, and both were (disappointingly) Very Competents.
For all of the assessments except the procedural multiple choice exams, criminal and civil litigation, you get:
Outstanding for 85%-100%
Very Competent for 70%-84%
Competent for 50%-69%
For the civil and criminal litigation exams, you get:
Outstanding for 88%-100%
Very Competent for 76%-87%
Competent for 60%-75%
(Yes, this means that 60% is the pass mark)
Coming out of the exams, this is what I thought:
Advocacy I
I felt my attempt on the day was lukewarm. The case didn't interest me much. However, I thought that my structure and arguments were fine, I used my skeleton, and I had worked a lot on that skeleton (which was submitted beforehand) and really felt that that, at least, was excellent. I suspected a mid-VC would be as high as I would get.
Actual result: 67.22% -- Competent. Very disappointing, especially after I thought I'd got off to such a good start with that skeleton.
Drafting
Everyone agreed this was the most complex drafting assignment we'd ever been given, and we had to do it in three hours, sight unseen, with binders of legal research that we'd been allowed to do beforehand on specific topics. It had to do with a claimant claiming professional negligence against his barrister AND solicitor for advice they had given him in an RTA case. Our client, Defendant 1, was the solicitor.
I knew I messed up the professional conduct point on this one by pleading fraud. It was the client's instructions to plead that the original RTA case, and the current professional negligence case, were both fraudulent. I couldn't see anything in the evidence to support this, and it never came out anywhere in my carefully structured pleadings. But it was the client's direct instructions. I panicked and stuck it in, in a final "Further or in the alternative" paragraph. Wrong wrong wrong. Do not plead fraud without sufficient evidence. Ever.
However, I was reassured by just about everyone that the marks I would lose for this would not be deducted from my drafting assessment. Rather, it would just be a professional conduct demerit point, and if I did OK on professional conduct in all my other exams, that wouldn't hold me back.
I also thought that the actual defence statement I had drafted was sound, that I had pleaded everything I needed to plead, and used my legal research effectively.
Well, either they docked me marks for the professional conduct point or I missed something pretty significant in the pleadings, because my result was:
64% -- Competent, and not even a high one. A bad end to a bad experience.
Negotiation
The only practical assessment of which I felt fully confident. We finished in time -- just. I felt I had covered the skills guide in glory, I really did, and at the end of the assessment my partner and I were informed, sotto voce, by the tutor acting as usher, that ours was the best he'd seen that day.
Result? 79.5% -- Very Competent, not even borderline Outstanding. I assume my partner/opponent got an Outstanding, then. I'm absolutely gutted by this one.
Opinion Writing
I didn't even know how to feel about this one, but didn't have high hopes of it. I'd never broken above VC in a take-home opinion, and this one was written, sight-unseen, in FOUR hours, again, with folders full of legal research and our course materials to guide us. Unlike in the mock, where I felt four hours was almost double what I needed, in this one I worried about running out of time and felt I spent about half of the time flipping through my legal research trying to find appropriate quotations. I have put out of my head what it was even about, it was such a trying experience.
Result? 87% -- Outstanding -- completely random.
Civil Procedure
The first paper of Civil Procedure, on the Monday, was much tougher than I think anyone expected. Despite the fact that the Tuesday paper was lighter and kinder, I nonetheless felt I had scuppered my chances of getting an Outstanding by the number of questions I must have got wrong on the Monday.
Result: 88.75% -- Outstanding -- only just, but nonetheless!
Criminal Procedure
I thought I might just have done it on this one.
I did.
Result: 90% -- Oustanding
So, the bottom line is, if I can get three Outstandings out of the four results I have left to receive, I can still get an Outstanding over all.
We've already had two of these -- Advocacy II and III. Frankly, I don't think either of them was Outstanding, although they might have been solid Very Competents. After Advocacy I my hopes are not high. I understand the options exams are a breeze, so my confident prediction at this point is that I will fall one exam short of receiving an Outstanding on the BVC, and have to make do with VC, getting VCs on both Advocacy exams and an Oustanding in both options, for a total of five Outstanding results overall -- as I say, one short.
I'm also really worried about the fact that my marks in practical exams are so low, and of the practicals, it was the most academic of them that allowed me to shine. In class I get really good feedback on my practical skills. So what am I doing so wrong in assessments?
To recap, the possible standard of grade we can achieve at the end of the year is Outstanding, Very Competent, or Competent. To get an Outstanding I must get either an average above 85% overall or six Outstanding marks out of my twelve assessments. So far I had two results in December, from Conference and Legal Research, and both were (disappointingly) Very Competents.
For all of the assessments except the procedural multiple choice exams, criminal and civil litigation, you get:
Outstanding for 85%-100%
Very Competent for 70%-84%
Competent for 50%-69%
For the civil and criminal litigation exams, you get:
Outstanding for 88%-100%
Very Competent for 76%-87%
Competent for 60%-75%
(Yes, this means that 60% is the pass mark)
Coming out of the exams, this is what I thought:
Advocacy I
I felt my attempt on the day was lukewarm. The case didn't interest me much. However, I thought that my structure and arguments were fine, I used my skeleton, and I had worked a lot on that skeleton (which was submitted beforehand) and really felt that that, at least, was excellent. I suspected a mid-VC would be as high as I would get.
Actual result: 67.22% -- Competent. Very disappointing, especially after I thought I'd got off to such a good start with that skeleton.
Drafting
Everyone agreed this was the most complex drafting assignment we'd ever been given, and we had to do it in three hours, sight unseen, with binders of legal research that we'd been allowed to do beforehand on specific topics. It had to do with a claimant claiming professional negligence against his barrister AND solicitor for advice they had given him in an RTA case. Our client, Defendant 1, was the solicitor.
I knew I messed up the professional conduct point on this one by pleading fraud. It was the client's instructions to plead that the original RTA case, and the current professional negligence case, were both fraudulent. I couldn't see anything in the evidence to support this, and it never came out anywhere in my carefully structured pleadings. But it was the client's direct instructions. I panicked and stuck it in, in a final "Further or in the alternative" paragraph. Wrong wrong wrong. Do not plead fraud without sufficient evidence. Ever.
However, I was reassured by just about everyone that the marks I would lose for this would not be deducted from my drafting assessment. Rather, it would just be a professional conduct demerit point, and if I did OK on professional conduct in all my other exams, that wouldn't hold me back.
I also thought that the actual defence statement I had drafted was sound, that I had pleaded everything I needed to plead, and used my legal research effectively.
Well, either they docked me marks for the professional conduct point or I missed something pretty significant in the pleadings, because my result was:
64% -- Competent, and not even a high one. A bad end to a bad experience.
Negotiation
The only practical assessment of which I felt fully confident. We finished in time -- just. I felt I had covered the skills guide in glory, I really did, and at the end of the assessment my partner and I were informed, sotto voce, by the tutor acting as usher, that ours was the best he'd seen that day.
Result? 79.5% -- Very Competent, not even borderline Outstanding. I assume my partner/opponent got an Outstanding, then. I'm absolutely gutted by this one.
Opinion Writing
I didn't even know how to feel about this one, but didn't have high hopes of it. I'd never broken above VC in a take-home opinion, and this one was written, sight-unseen, in FOUR hours, again, with folders full of legal research and our course materials to guide us. Unlike in the mock, where I felt four hours was almost double what I needed, in this one I worried about running out of time and felt I spent about half of the time flipping through my legal research trying to find appropriate quotations. I have put out of my head what it was even about, it was such a trying experience.
Result? 87% -- Outstanding -- completely random.
Civil Procedure
The first paper of Civil Procedure, on the Monday, was much tougher than I think anyone expected. Despite the fact that the Tuesday paper was lighter and kinder, I nonetheless felt I had scuppered my chances of getting an Outstanding by the number of questions I must have got wrong on the Monday.
Result: 88.75% -- Outstanding -- only just, but nonetheless!
Criminal Procedure
I thought I might just have done it on this one.
I did.
Result: 90% -- Oustanding
So, the bottom line is, if I can get three Outstandings out of the four results I have left to receive, I can still get an Outstanding over all.
We've already had two of these -- Advocacy II and III. Frankly, I don't think either of them was Outstanding, although they might have been solid Very Competents. After Advocacy I my hopes are not high. I understand the options exams are a breeze, so my confident prediction at this point is that I will fall one exam short of receiving an Outstanding on the BVC, and have to make do with VC, getting VCs on both Advocacy exams and an Oustanding in both options, for a total of five Outstanding results overall -- as I say, one short.
I'm also really worried about the fact that my marks in practical exams are so low, and of the practicals, it was the most academic of them that allowed me to shine. In class I get really good feedback on my practical skills. So what am I doing so wrong in assessments?