London Met hosts networking event to encourage and support students from under-represented backgrounds into postgraduate study and the legal profession.
Date: 03/05/2016
London Met's School of Law hosted “Get Into Law” for the second year running, organised by Beverley Rizzotto, our law mentoring programme coordinator.
The Event ran in connection with the Law Mentoring Programme, which was set up at the University in 2014, with the aim of encouraging and supporting students from under-represented backgrounds into postgraduate study and into the legal profession.
The afternoon kicked off with an introduction to the Programme by Beverley, assisted by Marie Da Silva from the Careers and Employability Services within the University. Marie provided general information to the students about the challenges they face in the current climate in entering the legal profession, and made sure students were aware of the support and assistance on hand within the University’s student services team to aid them in CV writing, preparing application forms and in gaining work experience.
A panel of legal professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds and legal disciplines then addressed the students, providing an overview of their careers and day-to-day life as lawyers, and giving top tips to get ahead in the legal world. Attending were Madia Hassani, trainee solicitor and an ex-London Met student, Christopher Grainger, Solicitor-Advocate at Lanyon Bowdler LLP, Steven Meredith, Solicitor and Director of WMB Law, and Khaled Moyeed, Associate at City firm, Clyde & Co. The panel was very well received indeed by the students, who had so many questions and so much valuable conversation with panel members that the session ended up running over time.
Chris Grainger of Lanyons stated “I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the future of the legal profession. I was really impressed by the students’ keen, intelligent and insightful questions. It is clear that many of them will go on to have successful careers. Well done to the Law Faculty for the teaching and support provided to students. There are some great things happening at London Met and I am privileged to have played a small part in it.”
Talking about the question-and-answer session, one student commented: “Thank you for today! It was such a good experience to hear people who have gone through the process and get different points of views and all the options available, especially at the time when we have our exams and coursework to the max. It just gives me more motivation to work harder and more clarity on what I would want to do.”
The session was followed by an hour of networking, where students could practice their communication skills and socialise in a relaxed and informal environment over drinks and nibbles with the panel, along with a number of lawyers from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, who have very kindly given up many hours of their time over recent months in acting as mentors to the University’s LPC students as part of the Law Mentoring Programme.
Organiser of the event, Beverley, said “I am so pleased that many of our students attended, and appeared so engaged; I truly believe that they all will have taken something from listening to the legal professionals, and hope that they use the experience and knowledge shared in shaping their own career path.”
