What subjects do you teach at The Law Academy?
CPQ Foundation Legal Systems & CPQ Foundation Professional Skills
What do you enjoy about teaching for us?
I enjoy bringing the Law to life & engaging with my students about how the Law is not just words on paper but actually affects every aspect of our individual lives. Legal Systems is all about how the legal and political system in this country works & I really enjoy highlighting real time examples when the Government or courts act in a way that illustrates the topic perfectly. It is quite surprising how often this happens during the course of a term.
Professional Skills is very practical & I stress to my students that our purpose is not only to pass the exam but to acquire skills that will help them in their day to day activities. I believe that the skills & techniques acquired will also help with future aspirations & hopefully career progression. I really enjoy the fact that I can impart the professional & managerial knowledge that I have acquired over a 40 year career, with the help of the extremely useful CILEX resource database.
What do you enjoy doing away from work?
I am a keen football fan (watcher, sadly no longer a player) with high hopes for my beloved Everton FC. I am also a keen musician. Whilst I don’t profess to be Brian May or Eric Clapton, I can play the guitar & I enjoy making & recording music; even with a few live performances thrown in back in the day. I do enjoy seeing bands live (particularly in small venues!) & I am partial to a trip to the theatre to see a good show (even a musical!) or a play. You can’t beat it.
In recent times I have become a prolific reader and enjoy writing short stories, when the fancy takes me. I enjoy travelling with my wife & family particularly to the USA & Europe, although over the last couple of years we have spent a fair bit of time rediscovering the UK & really enjoying it. My personal favourite place is Northern Ireland (but I am biased, because that is where my extended family are from!).
Any message for your new students in September?
I really look forward to meeting you all in September. I want to try to bring these subjects to life for you. I am confident that, when you study Legal Systems you will see & appreciate just how relevant the topic is in relation to everything we do as individuals living in the UK. It seems that every week something appears in the news or is reported that is relevant to the subjects that we are talking about in class.
I try to give you all the tools that you will need to pass the exam – notes, powerpoint slides, past questions. We will go through a lot of potential questions in the tutorials so you can be fully prepared & know what to expect when the exams come around.
There is a lot to cover & I believe that the tutorial sessions each week are really important for you. It’s in these sessions that we will focus particularly on the type of questions that you can expect in the exam. I really believe that you will enjoy studying the topics & you will come out of this course with a much greater appreciation of how things work & how the important organisations & structures in this country are held together.
Final words…
There will be a couple of recordings appearing on the microsite before we start the course in September. It would be really helpful if you could watch these before the first session. They explain how we approach the course, what we cover & what I expect from you ahead of each tutorial. They also provide some useful & important information about the course generally, so please take the time to view these if you can.
I will be stressing throughout the course that if you ever have problems understanding a particular topic or point, I am always on hand to help. You can email me & I will reply to you as soon as I can, so please don’t hesitate to contact me.