When I applied for the MLitt in Legal and Constitutional Studies at St Andrews for the year 2021/22, I would not have thought that, five years down the line, I would be working as a corporate lawyer at Slaughter and May, advising clients on takeovers, demergers, P2P transactions, IPOs and other words that meant absolutely nothing to me at that time.
The MLitt did not teach me any of that vocabulary – perhaps that is why my most-used Chat GPT prompt is ‘explain [insert capital markets thing] to me like I am five’. But the MLitt taught me how to articulate and have confidence in my own opinions. This is something that – according to feedback by my supervisors, not just my own delusions of grandeur – set me apart as a trainee and it is something that can be firmly traced back to my time at St Andrews.
As a very junior lawyer in a room with magic circle heavy weight partners and FTSE100 clients, it can be very difficult to speak up with your own opinion on a technical subject. There is something very scary and presumptuous about being an incredibly inexperienced lawyer telling a senior partner “You know this area that you have spent your entire life practising? Let me tell you what I think.” What made this less scary for me, is that it was not my first time.
The MLitt’s small group teaching and one-to-one tutorials invite students to bounce their ideas off academics leading in their fields. Academic discussions with my supervisors on the MLitt made me realise that when you articulate your opinions from a place of curiosity (and citing your sources) they are never perceived as presumptuous and while they may not always be ‘right’, they are always a welcome breath of fresh air, be that in the medieval history building in St Andrews or in some sleek client conference room at Slaughter and May.