As many new entrants to the law will testify, finding a training contract is tough. But when you have Asperger’s syndrome, it can be particularly challenging, as the final episode of the BBC fly-on-the-wall series Employable Me demonstrated last week.

It showed a 27-year-old named Ben on a one-week work placement at London firm Hodge Jones & Allen. At the start of the episode, Ben was asked to describe himself in one word. ‘Unique’, he replied.  

Obiter is inclined to agree. We can’t imagine anyone else having the same attitude to the law as Ben does: ‘I worship the law the same way others may worship a deity.’

Nor can Obiter imagine anyone else having the same attitude to applying for training contracts: Ben wouldn’t send a new application until he’d received a reply to his last one.

However, following 40 applications over three years and one unsuccessful interview, Ben changed his approach, sending CVs to 25 firms at the same time.

Obiter hopes his efforts will pay off. ‘We hope we will be hearing from you,’ an HJA partner is on record as saying.

 

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