Written by Holly Hoy, Lucy Payne & Alice Spencer
Undoubtedly coronavirus has had a massive impact on everyone's lives around the world. As people have been forced to stay at home, there have been significant changes to how things work, particularly for us in how university and exams have continued, and in law firms generally.
We would also love to hear your experiences! Please feel free to leave a comment and tell us how you have been impacted by the pandemic, whether at university or not!
University
Although some closed earlier than others, all universities were forced to cancel face to face teaching and close campuses when lockdown was announced. Luckily, most teaching had already been completed as we headed into the easter holiday and exam season, however there were still seminars, coursework and revision lectures to be completed before we were free to focus on exam preparation. As we already missed several weeks this year due to university strikes affecting a large amount of our teaching, these revision sessions and seminars were of high importance to complete. Newcastle took the approach of developing online alternatives such as discussion boards in place of seminars and recorded over slide-shows to aid revision, both of which were beneficial. It cannot be compared to the help we would have got had we been able to be at university however and it was a very difficult thing to adapt to whilst trying to prepare for a different style of exam.
As well as teaching changing, our year came to a very abrupt end with little opportunity to celebrate and say goodbye before we moved back to our respective areas of the country. Although we are lucky that we will all return together in September, unlike final year students whose whole university experience ended suddenly, it was still upsetting to not be able to have those final few nights after exams to just enjoy the city and spend time together without considering academics. It has already been confirmed that university will be very different when we return in September, with online lectures and very limited face to face contact, however hopefully our experiences at the end of this year will allow us to settle into it quickly so focus can remain on actual learning.
Exams
As law students, we began university life in September aware of the methods of revision that would work best for this kind of degree, such as making revision cards and Quizlets to remember specific cases and their details. In basis, our viewpoint was that a lot of our final exams would be based on remembering a lot of intricate details straight from memory. However, due to COVID-19 the university was unable to allow for normal exams to go ahead and as a result our exams were moved from closed-book exams in lecture theatres to open-book exams online. This was a massive change and had completely undermined everything we had prepared for. There was also the problem that, as we had done no assessed work in the first semester, we were not able to receive a safety net. You can read more about the safety nets and the petitions for it in this article.
All of this meant that our end of year exams were extremely different from what we expected, and we had to change the way we worked quickly and effectively. This meant that time making revision cards on specific case details now seemed futile as we had access to the cases throughout the exams as they were now open book. For future reference in case something like this does happen to you, I would highly recommend looking through past papers, reading the guidance and planning them. In this way, if the question are slightly similar you can refer back to your answers and see a similar idea of what you should be writing and how to structure your answer. It is also helpful to use page markers in your textbook so you can flick straightaway to sections that you may need quickly in the exam. It is also important that you still have knowledge of the content you could be asked about as well. Although open book, past papers and textbooks can only help you so far, and making sure you have understanding of the content you will use in your answer is imperative to having a top level answer.
As of writing this article, we are still currently waiting for our results from our exams, and are all hopeful we've achieved the grades we need to look for vacation schemes next year. If you've struggled with your exams during this unprecedented time or feel like you need support, your university welfare team are there to help, so please don't be afraid to contact them.
Beyond University
In terms of the UK's legal landscape, there have been a number of drastic changes across the board arising from lockdown. Whilst many students remained hopeful of vacation schemes and work experience despite the lockdown in March, many legal events have been cancelled, postponed or moved online. Typically, vacation schemes are reserved for law students in their second year and beyond, but with many being cancelled this year, there is concern over a shortage of places next year and for many years to come. However, one silver lining is the availability of online experiences that have now come available, including Legal Cheek's Virtual Vacation Scheme and the Linklaters Virtual Internship; whilst we, as first year students, would usually not have access to these kind of schemes, the movement to online experiences has allowed us to gain valuable experience and show a sense of initiative during lockdown.
The courts too have had to adapt to these challenging times, adapting a 'show-must-go-on' approach with the introduction of remote hearings and the recent resumption of jury trials, albeit in a limited number of courts. However, despite the justice system pushing onwards, inherent problems still remain, with Scotland's most senior judge Lord Carloway warning of a major backlog in the courts. With a predicted recession on the horizon for the UK, it is unclear whether the justice system will receive the funding it requires to overcome such a backlog, or whether the long road to hearings will remain a permanent feature of the UK courts.
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