More about Christian
Christian completed his undergraduate and postgraduate legal studies at Nottingham Law School. He is now a successful barrister at Garden Court North Chambers and recently released his debut book, The Law in 60 Seconds, a Pocket Guide to Your Rights.
Whilst researching institutions to decide where he would study his LLB, Christian says that Nottingham Trent University (NTU) kept appearing as a 'respected' institution to study law with excellent facilities. The added benefit of being from Nottingham made the choice easy and he hasn’t regretted his decision since.
Christian has fond memories spending many hours revising in the library. “You genuinely build really good friendships with the people you are around because there’s only so much pretending you can do when you’re with someone at 3am and both stressed for an exam!” he said.
Other memories of studying at NTU include feeling fortunate to have supportive lecturers which resulted in a positive learning experience. “Even now,” Christian said, “they gave me a wisdom that still I apply to my every-day life”.
During his time at NTU, Christian was mentored by a QC who provided invaluable feedback and advice on things like pupillage and non-law related activities. Arranged by NTU’s employability team, the mentoring advice continued years after Christian graduated and remains thankful for the support offered by the Nottingham Law School.
As well as mentoring, the School introduced Christian to blog writing. He contributed material to the Nottingham Law School blog, which in turn led to him writing for both the Nottingham Post and the Huffington Post.
“It’s funny when you look back,” Christian says, “You see where things started and actually it was the email about ‘do you want to write for the Nottingham Law School blog’ that was the first thing that really got me into writing”.
The Legal Advice Centre gave Christian his very first exposure to offering people legal advice. It also developed skills that prepared him for the real world, such as learning how to communicate well with clients, how to convey complex legal matters in a manner the public understand and conduct research.
Living in London at the time, Christian was aware of the growing issue of knife crime and the implementation of stop-and-search – a power given to police to search an individual or vehicle if they have “reasonable grounds” to suspect the person was carrying a weapon.
“The reality with stop-and-search is that it disproportionately affects people that look just like me and I felt like I was being entirely missed from the debate,” Christian said.
Using his legal knowledge, Christian created a series of 60 second videos. These informed people of their rights involving stop-and-search and helped make the process less intimidating. This eventually led him to write his book in the hope it would give people more confidence and control over their lives.
Christian chose NTU as the location to officially launch his book. He also asked academic staff at Nottingham Law School to review specific chapters, which is a mark of the respect he has for their expertise.
So, what is next for Christian? “I want to continue this journey in making the law accessible, enabling people to be empowered and better informed of their rights, hopefully resulting in authority figures treating the general public with greater respect,” he said.
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