They’re not, they’re appointed.

Long story

I’ve been noticing a number of Supreme Court related search queries in the blog stats and thought this was a good question to be searching for because the Supreme Court is a new and critical part of our constitutional framework. I’ve studied the House of Lords reasonably well for mooting etc but I’ve read very little on the Supreme Court because it’s just not yet bubbled down to me. Therefore, pinch of salt should follow.

The Supreme Court is a horizontal shift for the House of Lords. It doesn’t actually gain any new powers but the judges get new emails, a new building and court room and they lose their robes and wigs (which I think is a shame).

There are 12 Justices of the Supreme Court who have simply stopped being Law Lords and started being Justices of the Supreme court one day. It’s really probably the best way to get your bench of venerable and well experienced judges from one court to another.

I think that elected judges are a pretty dangerous situation. You don’t actually want the guy who can literally send you to jail trying to appeal to people who read the Daily Mail, you’re not going to measure up. You end up with situations like the US where judges need to differentiate themselves through how tough they are on criminals. It makes wonderful headlines but it’s not exactly Baron Hume. I think there are considerable problems with the appointment model, it appears to be self propagating etc, but it is a better curtailing measure against concentrated state power (a very New World ideal) than if they and the legislature were both chasing after the same votes from the same voters. I think you really want a little bit of heterogeneity in your government.

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You will have to sometimes refuse to go out to get work done at university, there’s just no other way but my friends in other subjects have not had the problem of workload to the same extent that myself and my law friends have, so the consensus is that there is more to the course to cover. You’ll probably find it to be a very quick course trying to cover a great deal of information very quickly, the Scottish LLB (my course) tries to have a lot of students ready to study law further in two years while third year and honours provide an opportunity to broaden skills and cement them.  The specifics of the degree will differ depending on the law school you decide to go to but the standard form in Scotland is a four year degree (three years to Ordinary/Pass level and an additional year of honours, sometimes two years for the pass degree to give more time) this is then followed by a number of post graduate options which take between 1 and 3 years depending on what you want to be able to practice after your degree.  Graduate students can opt for a very quick degree which lasts 2 years.

So the pacing may take you by surprise – I was stunned when, on my first day, in my first lecture of higher education I was handed an assignment that would count towards my future employability. Law believes in learn by doing in a huge way. There’s really no messing about as a law student.

It’s not all bad – the course is supposed to stretch and it’s a really good challenge. It just won’t be as easy to maintain the sort of records of going out that people in other degree courses manage to do. You will hear people from the business school boasting about their 17-18 hour stints at the students union and your first thought will honestly be how they find the time. Many students on my law course have survived without becoming a studious recluse, myself included, and it will not stop you enjoying university as much as anyone else. Just consider that a lot of your academic success will be from a knack of pulling off coursework and exams which the markers like – like all English based subject law is also very subjective with the learned principles you have given providing a guide to your own style – your ability to compose, frankly, arty answers to questions is what will propel you though.

So, how hard is law school? Enough to be getting on with and you should consider if you feel up to the work before you start and always remember that in Scotland you are allowed a “false start” without losing your free education, so if you find it horrible after the first year be aware that there are options to get you away from it. Don’t believe the horror stories though – there’s no “book of laws” to memorise for the exam at the end of the year, it’ll resemble high school English and Modern Studies a lot more than the profession is probably happy with.