If grown-ups are doing it, then it’s oh-so over

I’m a grown-up and I tweet. 

I’m sure you are a grown-up who tweets too. So, are your kids tweeting? Probably not. In fact, you can be sure that if grown-ups are doing anything, then for the kids, it is already passé.

This summer, my son and his cousin were off doing teenage boy stuff, and that seemed to include a lot of messing about on their iPads and a huge amount of hysterical laughter. They were even keen to go to their rooms early and gales of laughter from there made me wonder what on earth they were up to.

Turns out, they were Vine-ing. Yes, I had heard of it, but had no clue about what it was about: Vine is an app for sharing short, looping videos. I still don’t get it, because I’m over the hill. But here’s the news – twitter is so over: the kids are hanging on the Vine. 

Is your application letting you down?

It’s a competitive world out there and as a result, I would expect to see job candidates trying hard to impress in their applications. But even in these difficult times, it is quite common to see candidates making basic mistakes which will ensure they do not make the short list. 

While it is amusing to read that a candidate has excellent time management skills as she has to balance her studies with an active social life, this may not be the best way to impress the selectors. Neither is being an ‘excellent active listener’. This seems to crop up a lot – is there an online CV site promoting this description? 

Here is a list of some easy-to-avoid mistakes:

Spelling mistakes 

Spelling and grammar. Spelling and grammar. Repeat after me until you are bored. Check your letters and CV. Check again. Ask someone else to read them for you, to check again. Use spell-check for goodness sake: that is what it’s there for. Applications containing spelling mistakes and dreadful grammar will go straight onto the reject pile. Regular mistakes include:

• using the plural when the singular applies. For example, ‘Government’ is singular. So often people will write, ‘the Government are bringing in new legislation later this year....’ Please don’t do this: it makes my head hurt.   
• Which brings me neatly to the next one: using the capital letter spray gun. Capital letters are for the beginning of sentences, names and proper nouns.  Lawyers are particularly bad at this: they love making the claimant and defendant into proper nouns. Stop it, please!  
• The grocer’s apostrophe. No, no, no. Mind you, even Sainsbury’s (?) makes this mistake. I try not to look at the signs as I walk along the aisle selling “CD’s”.

Apply for the right job  

... not the job you wish you were applying for.  

No covering letter with a CV 

Where the job advertisement asks for a CV rather than completing an application form, it should never be sent in without a covering letter. This document is vital to bring your application to the selector’s attention. It is your opportunity to show that you know something about the company you are contacting and to highlight the most pertinent aspects of your CV. No covering letter? Your CV may well go straight onto the reject pile.  

Generic CV
There is no excuse these days for having a generic CV, which you then send out with all your applications. It is so important that you read the advert, the job and skills specifications and then ensure that your CV covers all of them. Even if you lack a particular skill, you should refer to it, explaining why you think you can still do the job. You never know: that skill may be a rare thing among all the applicants and your candid assessment of your abilities may be just what we are looking for. 

Strange fonts
This may seem unfair, after all, it’s the content which counts, right? Wrong. Anyone who sends in an application printed in a strange typeface will be viewed with suspicion. Why have you done that? Can you be trusted to write sensible, professional documents or will you be signing off emails with lols or xx? We selectors may well think you are not the level-headed person we are looking for.

At the interview

Find out about the firm before you get to your interview. I am always amazed that some candidates appear to have not even had a cursory glance at the company website. In answer to the question, so why do you want to work for us, it is not enough to say, “well I quite like the law....” 

... and don’t be late
It’s not always possible to do a trial run to the place of interview in advance, but Google Street View is the interviewee’s friend. My employer’s office is off the beaten track and we have had anguished calls from interviewees who have followed their sat-nav and found themselves the wrong side (really) of the railway track – able to see the office, but barred by a two-metre high fence. It takes no more than five minutes to find most places using Google and the Street View option means you can ‘walk’ up and down the street and find out exactly what the location looks like. I never go anywhere important for the first time without doing just that.

Finally, good luck! Be yourself and don’t forget to clean your shoes before you head off to your interview...

Cycling is the new golf

So ladies, played any golf recently? No, me neither. And your partner - has he been climbing the greasy pole, playing golf with the boss? No, thought not. So, what are thrusting young lawyers doing these days to get ahead, entertain their clients and keep fit? Well, the golf bags have been consigned to the attic and they are buying expensive road bikes instead. They are dashing off on rides, raising money for charity, networking like mad and entertaining their clients at the same time.

Cycling is the new golf, take my word for it.

When was the last time you received one of those round-robin emails, full of self depreciating comments and a request for charitable donations which mentioned a golf day? Ages ago, wasn't it? But I bet it's less than a month since a similar message, only this time entailing a thrilling cycle route, horrible hills and a lycra-clad colleague's photo, popped into your in-box.

In the past fortnight, I've heard about three cycle rides organised by lawyers - two with work colleagues or clients and one which was a gruelling 120k road race in Snowdonia. At these cycling events the age range is wide: trainees can rub shoulders with partners, clients get to meet their lawyers and they all share in bike envy: even I, a twice-a-year-on-holiday-cyclist, know my Bianchi from my Boardman these days.

Cycling is being taken seriously by law firms as a profile raising, charity supporting, client entertaining pastime these days. Lawyers at Pinsent Masons are taking part in the London to Paris cycle ride, raising money for the charity Cure Leukaemia. Bott & Co, solicitors in Wilmslow, have gone even further and sponsor a cycling team as part of their interest in road safety.

Its also a popular topic for bloggers: The Cycling Solicitor at Bolt Burdon Kemp writes about cycling safety and current issues while The Cycling Lawyer is a blog written by a QC who is chairman of Thames Velo - East Berkshire's cycle road racing club.

So, if golf is dead, then long live cycling.

And not all of it on the roads. If you are more interested in watching, and not getting rained on, then give the velodrome a try. There is nothing more exciting than a high speed whirl of colour and noise which the enclosed space can supply. The success of Team Sky and the Olympics have encouraged a wider UK audience and it's been a pleasure to watch the sport evolve and to see cycling go mainstream. It is really great to see people who would never have visited a velodrome a few years ago, cheering on riders from all over the world and having a great night out. How fantastic is that?

Happy birthday – here’s your spam

It was my birthday this month and along with the cards, birthday messages and presents I received some unexpected mail.

It started at midnight and went on all day: my email inbox filled up with messages from practically everyone I have ever shopped with online, all wishing me happy birthday and offering me hyperlinks to their latest great deals.

I’m sure it wasn’t this bad last year: I had a couple, but didn’t give it much thought. But this year, it has been ridiculous.

Here’s a message to all online retailers: birthday messages are last year’s marketing wheeze. This year, you are all just spamming: filling up my inbox with your less than heartfelt greetings is no way to encourage me to visit your site again.

Are you being heard? The perils of working on the train

Sometimes, I’m a bit nosey. Especially when I am on the train with an hour or two to kill. If I’m on my way to a meeting, I can read my notes, and do some work along the way, but always, in my line of work, ensuring that I keep those notes and work to myself.

Not everyone is the same though: I am always amazed by the number of professionals who are quite happy to discuss their clients’ cases or other confidential information on the phone in a crowded train carriage. I am also amazed at how careless some people are with the papers they spread around the train table as they work during the journey. 

As I said, I’m a bit nosey and if there are papers on the table in front of me, I’m going to read them. I’m also good at reading upside down, so that won’t stop me either. (It’s a handy skill which I’ve used many times in the past). I’ve read business plans, marketing briefs for well known brands, listened in on the details of a very interesting contract dispute (and privately disagreed with the advice being given) and sat through a thorough bollocking being administered on the phone to some hapless junior back in a distant office. 

So, I wasn’t that surprised to find that sometimes people get caught out. The British Medical Journal reports that a consultant forensic psychiatrist who discussed a patient’s medical report with a colleague on a crowded train could be disciplined. The Court of Appeal quashed a High Court injunction which had prevented the Mental Health NHS Trust from convening a disciplinary panel to hear allegations of breach of confidence against the psychiatrist.

The main allegation was that the psychiatrist had the patient’s report on her lap and discussed it with a colleague when the two doctors were passengers on a train in November 2010. Opposite them happened to be sitting the head of secure services policy at the Department of Health. She did not speak to the psychiatrist at the time but later wrote a letter to the patient's hospital, outlining details of the incident, indicating that the patient’s name was clearly visible.

The psychiatrist admitted reading the patient’s notes on the train but said that she had not realised that his name could be seen. She also admitted dictating two reports on the train but she said that she had ensured no other passengers were close by.

Lord Justice Pill, delivering the leading judgment in the Court of Appeal said that a patient’s right to confidentiality “is fundamental in the health service and must be respected by doctors and other staff.”

And that goes for lawyers and other professionals too. When on the train, do not forget where you are: keep your files out of sight and confidential conversations for another time. 

Don’t spill it, zip it.

Facetime etiquette - from Arthur C Clarke to modern manners

I love my iPad and I particularly love using my iPad’s FaceTime application.  The connection is so much personal than just speaking on the phone.

I recall showing it to my Dad last year when we had a long chat with my sister who lives abroad. He was blown away by the technology – not only could he speak to his daughter for free, but we could see her too – and her apartment – and her boyfriend. It was lovely and I could see he was alive to the possibilities that FaceTime could offer - enabling him to see and speak to his children as if they were in the same room.

So, Christmas arrived and with it, both of my parents acquired iPads. Then the fun started!

On Christmas day, I had a great chat with my Dad via FaceTime. Then another one. And another.

After the first one, I realised that I looked pretty terrible on screen and by the time the second call came in, my hair was up and I was wearing make-up. By the time of the third contact, I was clearing up after tea and had a serious debate as to whether I should answer at all. I did, and took a seat in the kitchen, with a glass of wine and the family cat on the table. The unexpected consequence of this was that I ended up waving the wine bottle at the iPad so that my Dad could read the label and comparing the sizes of our respective pet cats.

Over the following week, I had FaceTime conversations with my parents, my niece and my sister on their iPads pretty much every day and it was lovely to be able to do that. I even gave my sister-in-law a guided tour of our newly painted cellar, including the view down the spiral staircase. How amazing is that? But it also dawned on me that the rules for video chat are very different from when just using the phone.

The writer and scientist Arthur C Clarke, always way ahead of his time, invented the equivalent of FaceTime in his book, Imperial Earth (published in 1976). And take note: he also touched on FaceTime etiquette. In one scene, a character fails to switch on the visual option – preferring a voice-only conversation. Clarke's protagonist comments, “as a matter of common good manners, one never overrode the vision circuit, unless there was a very good excuse indeed… whatever the real reason, social protocol demanded some explanation. To say the viddy was out of order was to invite total disbelief, even on those rare occasions when it was true.”

Uh-o, this is the future, dear reader. You may as well get used to it: I spent the entire Christmas/New Year holiday far better dressed and made up than usual, on the basis that I would inevitably end up having a FaceTime conversation with someone I would prefer to only see me half decently turned out.

So, on reflection, here are my useful tips for a happy FaceTime experience:

·          

• If you can, text to, or otherwise pre-arrange your FaceTime calls in advance. FaceTime angst when your call is not answered, or when you really don’t want to take that call, can then be avoided;

• Keep still! Or at least, keep your iPad still: there is nothing worse than having to watch your caller whirling around – sea-sickness may ensue;

• Position yourself or your iPad carefully. I could see up the nostrils of one of my relatives until I made a joke about it and the iPad was hastily re-positioned;

• Be prepared! Or don’t be afraid to ask to return the call shortly – especially if you feel the need to put on your face before your caller sees you;

• Beware of pulling faces. Nuns practise what is called ‘custody of the eyes’ – you cannot unsee what you have seen (so don’t look). Likewise, if you start rolling your eyes in exasperation, your caller can’t unsee that either; 
•  You can't take FaceTime calls just anywhere: we all know people who text from the bathroom - or even take calls - not on your FaceTime you don't!

• Have an exit strategy. There’s nothing more awkward that just looking at each other, following a long pause, then feebly muttering ‘bye.’

Who knows, FaceTime may improve our manners. In the meantime, don’t forget to tidy up and hide that pile of laundry behind your chair….