Working for the DPP?

randomchild

Hello,

I am a 3rd year arts student, hoping to go into DIT's law degree course next year, focusing on criminal law. My ultimate goal is to eventually work for DPP as either a Prosecution Solicitor or Legal executive. I was wondering if any one could answer a few questions I had about this plan?

1/ How viable is it? Is it very difficult to get employment in this field?

2/ DIT offer a masters in criminology and I could afford to do this after my law degree. Buy they also offer a further optional masters in law after the degree. Which of these two options would be more suited to my goal?

3/ How valuable would say, a summer's worth of work experience in a solicitor’s office be to my goal?

Thanks in advance!

dats_right

randomchild wrote: »

Hello,

I am a 3rd year arts student, hoping to go into DIT's law degree course next year, focusing on criminal law. My ultimate goal is to eventually work for DPP as either a Prosecution Solicitor or Legal executive. I was wondering if any one could answer a few questions I had about this plan?

1/ How viable is it? Is it very difficult to get employment in this field?

I'm sure that you have seen the other threads regarding the general climate at the moment in the profession, but that said I think a plan such as yours is reasonably viable. It can be quite difficult to get employment yes, but if you are genuinely interested are capable and get the right breaks employment in this field isn't an impossibility.

randomchild wrote: »

2/ DIT offer a masters in criminology and I could afford to do this after my law degree. Buy they also offer a further optional masters in law after the degree. Which of these two options would be more suited to my goal?

You could also consider UCC who do a masters in criminal law as far as I know or Galway who do one in Human Rights both of which are suitable for working in criminal law.

randomchild wrote: »

3/ How valuable would say, a summer's worth of work experience in a solicitor’s office be to my goal?

If you can get it, I'd say it would be quite beneficial, particularly from getting to see whether the nitty gritty of legal practice is really something that interests you. I don't know for sure whether the DPP employs people with no experience, I would guess not, so summer work experience can only be beneficial but you might need in addition more substantial experience post academic qualifications also.

nuac

a few months at the coalface in a solicitors' office would be most useful to anyone considering any legal career. If that is still on offer, grab it, and make yourself useful about the place.

superficies

You could also consider the masters in criminology and criminal justice in UCD--handy because it's in Dublin and they seem to have loads of links with the AG etc.

hada

the human rights masters in galway isn't exactly best suited to your needs. however, there is an international criminal law masters, or better still, an LLM in public law - a hell of a lot of those graduates go to work in the LRC, something somewhat (broadly speaking of course) akin to the DPP. And you'll have the benefit of having Conor Hanly and Tom O'Malley two of this jurisdiction's best criminal jurists.

other than that, UCC run a fantastic masters programme geared towards criminal law - it has Carney J. as adjunct professor - very very useful as he's delivered judgment in some of Ireland's most recent imporant criminal law cases.

even look abroad for a masters, numerous universities in england run related courses (i.e. oxford masters in criminology...)

dats_right

hada wrote: »

the human rights masters in galway isn't exactly best suited to your needs.

Don't agree, with that at all. The two areas are very much intertwined and related. Also as there is virtually zero pure human rights legal work available in this country (save the RAT and refugee law generally) most graduates will inevitably drift into areas such as criminal. And besides, there is nothing wrong with having a broader skills base, for instance I know one person with a criminal LLM working in commercial law and I know another with a commercial LLM working in criminal, both quite happily.