Will van Zwanenberg, the Baby Barrister on Twitter, is a 38 year old Mature Bar Student currently studying for the BPTC at The College of Law (UK). He hopes eventually to practice in Immigration, Refugee, Crime and Human Rights Law.
On Mind mapping, Will writes: “I have no professional interest at all in this field. My interest, if one can call it that, is that of a fascinated layman. I should also say that I have no formal academic qualifications in this field of cognitive science either. It’s merely that having a background in both computer science and philosophy, these interests have naturally developed of their own accord and, without wanting to appear pompous, I read quite vociferously in this field, purely out of interest sake; all of which led me to discover the concept of mind mapping, purely by chance
I would describe my discovery as serendipitous. I can’t quite remember when it was, but I recall reading a journal article about various techniques associated with critical thinking, memory, recall, and analysis of complex problems. Somewhere in the midst of this article, the concept of mind mapping was discussed alongside numerous practical examples. Being a visual, I immediately found affinity with the ideas being discussed. In essence, I thought to myself: “that makes a lot of sense” and “this is all very much in tune with the way I naturally think.” Not only this, I also found myself thinking that whether I realised it or not, I have, at some level, in creating something approaching a mind map for many, many years. Whenever I approached the process of trying to analyse complex problems, it seemed perfectly natural and intuitive to me to want to try and analyse the problem in diagrammatic form to get an accurate overview. What I was finding was that whilst the concept of a mind map was not something radically new, their usage, enabled me to do what I’ve been doing for a long while, albeit much more efficiently.
I realise that my maps have their critics (and I’m not a panacea), but I personally regard them as an extremely powerful and useful tool. I use them to enable me to do all sorts of things associated with both my personal and professional life. Precisely because I do find them to be so helpful I now can’t imagine not using them.
Having said all of this, I also make extensive use of both Argument and Concept maps but I will extol their virtues in greater depth as and when I get my website and blog up and running.”
For DCC, he answered the following questions:
1: What is your most favourite part of the day?
Hmmm … At the moment, I would have to say it’s the moment just before I fall asleep, having retired for the night. Being a Bar Student, I have to survive with very little sleep most days. Prolonged sleep deprivation is having an affect on me. I’m utterly exhausted most of the time therefore, when I do get to get some sleep, it’s greatly appreciated.
2: What is the worst kind of person you ever sat next to on a flight?
Whist I wouldn’t ever wish to be accused of tarring a nation of 600 million people with the same brush, I would have to say that being stuck next to a morbidly obese American on a flight back from New Zealand to London was undoubtedly my worst experience in terms of “persons not to sit next to experiences.” Everything that one can possibly imagine in a negative sense about morbidly obese Americans ran true on this occasion.
As well as being physically enormous and being physically unable to get both into and out of his assigned seat, this chap sweated profusely, had an appalling body odour problem, complained bitterly about almost everything (including those matters about which the stewardess could do nothing at all to affect), and insisted upon ranting and raving about how stupid and backward New Zealand and its population are because it chooses not to emulate America and because he wasn’t able to find a branch of Burger King whilst he was in Auckland. Oh, and because he found that many restaurants and hotels in New Zealand don’t accept American Express credit cards.
As well as the physically unpleasant nature of the experience, having to listen to this guy rant and rave in the most appallingly arrogant, jingoistic, supercilious manner was, to be frank, utterly unbearable. Let me add that whilst I would never wish to be accused of being prejudiced towards obese people, as I hope will be apparent, this experience was far from pleasant.
3: Were you ever in a situation where you came up short with a good come back? You can give it now!
I’ve experienced this sort of scenario on many occasions in my life. Rather than attempt to describe them all instead, what I’ll endeavour to do is do, is describe the Cassandraesc nature of these experiences.
Before I took it upon myself to re-train with a view to pursuing a career at the Bar, I had a career in IT as a software engineer. During this period, I was subject to some very bad management. I have had it said that this is true of the IT industry in general, but I’m adamant that I have been subject to some particularly bad management as I hope my recollection of some of these events will demonstrate. On most of these occasions, I could see the obvious lunacy associated with the decisions that were made but was powerless to do anything about then. Ultimately, these occasions ended up with me saying: “I told you so.”
In the IT industry, software is never finished; it’s merely subject to the next developmental iteration. As a consequence, it is always being improved upon and developed. More importantly, bugs are fixed and new features are added. For reasons I’ve never entirely understood, the overwhelming majority of people who work in management within the IT industry do not have a technical background but instead have either a business or “management” background. Therefore, they simply don’t understand the maxim I’ve described. Whilst it’s true that the commercial imperative plays its part, it’s also true (or so it would seem) that the managers of large IT companies simply want to get a product (albeit one that is poorly developed and seldom if ever fulfils the brief in a satisfactory manner) to the customer in order to be paid. The desire to do this as cheaply and is quickly as possible invariably means that the worst possible solution is adopted.
In IT terms (particularly where a company’s core business functions are dependent upon its IT operation), this can be disastrous. If one actually accepted the fact that greater expenditure, as well as time and investment at the outset, would lead to less overall costs in the long run, one wouldn’t make these sorts of decisions yet that is what happens all the time. It’s in this context that I found myself saying: “I told you so.”
4: Which trial/case still haunts you till today?
I’m not yet in practice and so therefore this question doesn’t yet apply.
5: If you have a blog, how did you get started? Who or what inspired you to blog?
I don’t currently have a blog however one is in development called “Propping up the Bar” – watch this space.
6: Did you end up in the profession of your childhood dreams?
Err; no … It wasn’t my ambition as a child to pursue a career as a lawyer. However, having made the decision to do so, I couldn’t be happier.
7: Tell us about your most embarrassing experiences in a restaurant, opening a bottle of wine, or do-it-yourself projects. Pick one and tell all!
Once, when I was working for a large IT consultancy in London, one evening whilst I was entertaining on the firm’s expense account a well known blue-chip client that was worth a great deal of money to us, I somehow failed to keep control of the cork of an expensive bottle of champagne I was, at the time, trying to open. As a consequence, I succeeded in drenching the MD of this client and effectively ruining his very expensive tailor-made suit.
What had happened is that I’d taken him and a group of his colleagues out to dinner to a fancy restaurant and so naturally I decided I’d order a bottle of Champagne. Whilst trying to open it, the bottle effectively exploded and I managed to drench everyone sitting close by including, as I said, the MD. To his credit, he was very good about the whole thing and could see that I was mortified and so no real damage was done.
8: Have you ever dozed off during a lecture or meeting?
More than once – including, on one occasion, when I was sitting right at the front. The lecturer, who was then one of my tutors, without missing a beat and without loosing the thread of his lecture, simply carried on talking but moved from behind his lectern and walked over towards me and gave me a gentle nudge so as to wake me up. I can’t begin to describe how embarrassed I felt.
9: Your worst vacation experience?
In1988, when I went on a package skiing holiday that was a disaster from start to finish. Just about everything that could go wrong did.
Apart from there not being any snow, the departure of our plane was delayed for hours, the coach that was set up to take us from the airport to the ski resort broke down and then later suffered a puncture, the food at the hotel I was staying at was appalling such that I later ended up getting diarrhea, the hotel itself was filthy and doubtless a health hazard, because it was a ski resort there was quite literally nothing to do in the absence of snow and so we were all profoundly bored, a hastily arranged “excursions” were laid on by the holiday company to entertain us were frankly dreadful, and to cap it all, somehow, in the process being transferred from the airport to the hotel, my sister managed to lose her suitcase and all its contents.
10: Something you always wanted to learn but never did?
Many things…
1. To pay the saxophone
2. To play slide blues guitar
3. To play the drums
4. To snowboard (I can ski very well but I can’t snow board)
5. To rally drive
6. Languages: Mandarin, German, Russian, Italian and Latin
7. Carpentry and Joinery, so as to enable me to make my own furniture
8. Neuro Linguistic Programming
9. To tap dance
10. Architecture so as to enable me to design my own house
11. Dry stone walling
12. String theory
13. Environmental Law
I also wish I had a PhD in quantum physics.
11: if you could trade places with a cartoon character for one day…who would that be?
Provided the term “cartoon character” could be loosely interpreted so as to include comic strip characters, I’d like to be either one of the Men in Black or, the 1950s private investigator, Dick Tracy. Failing that, Popeye the Sailor Man.