What a nonsensical legal action!
This paragraph, in The Times (22 November 2017), settles the matter for me:
“After graduating from Oxford in 2000, Mr Siddiqui trained at one of the “magic circle” law firms, Clifford Chance, according to court filings, but was not kept on at the end of the programme. He worked for three other law firms and then as a tax adviser at the accounting company EY but was dismissed in December 2011 “essentially for poor performance”, court papers say. He has been unemployed since.”
So, he got his Training Contract (‘Articles’) at the extremely prestigious Clifford Chance law firm – at that point, getting in there, the class of his degree became irrelevant. He did his two years, it seems, and they didn’t keep him on, i.e. didn’t continue to employ him when he qualified – that had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the fact that he got a 2:1 as opposed to a First.
Sorry to be brutal (but he’ll hear this in Court), IMHO, he simply wasn’t good enough, over the course of the two-year Training Contract, to convince the firm to keep him on and, again sorry to be brutal, he hasn’t been good enough to ‘cut it’ throughout the rest of his career (to date). He ‘found’ himself unemployed in December 2011, he still is, and, again IMHO, he feels the need to blame someone – someone, besides himself: this is a giant anchor which will have played a large part in his having not moved forward over the last 6 years. He MUST look at his own failings, his own deficiencies and address them – that is the only way in which he’ll be able to raise the anchor which has him rooted to the spot, the only way in which he’ll be able to move on and improve his circumstances.
The guy got a 2:1 in Modern History from Oxford, was at a prestigious college at the University, Brasenose, he did his law Training Contract at Clifford Chance….Faiz Siddiqui is an extremely bright and intelligent guy but it seems to me that when the going gets tough, he doesn’t get going. We can all do well when things are going well – the test is how well we do when life isn’t going according to the script.
The sooner Faiz lets go of the past (and, often, that is a lot easier said than done), the sooner he takes responsibility for his situation and stops lashing out, the sooner he stops saying “it’s not fair”, stops blaming other people, the sooner he’ll be able to move on…
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