North of the Stupid Line

Right, we know there are not many Deaf lawyers in the UK.

We know that there are even fewer Deaf lawyers undertaking advocacy in tribunals and court.

I’m one of them. As an employment solicitor, I undertake advocacy in the Employment Tribunal on a regular basis.

Now, bear in mind that I’m profoundly Deaf and my first language is English as opposed to say BSL. I am a fluent BSL user, equally comfortable with spoken English. However, I’d be the first to admit that I do not have perfect speech; I’ve never actually *heard* a word so go figure. My voice is rather high pitched, and I tend to trip over my words from time to time or mulch all the words into one big mush as I don’t allow time to elocute-each-word-fully.

A weird byproduct of my “imperfect” speech is that some people understand me, and some don’t. I find I’m sometimes able to identify who falls into these categories: females in the former, and males in the latter; individuals who know how to LISTEN and those who don’t.

So, I undertake tribunal advocacy with imperfect speech. I hear you say: “that’s easy! Just use BSL!”. Well, yes, I could, but that would mean translating complex legal principles etc. into BSL and then hoping, just hoping, that the interpreter will be able to grasp the legal principle as well as the point I’m making, and voice over that in a way that is appropriate for such a situation i.e. formal language with legalese thrown in.

Are there actually any interpreters out there able to do this for me? And can they go to each tribunal regardless of location within England and Wales to do exactly that? I doubt it.

So, therein lies the problem. How does one solve it? Answers on a postcard please.

I went on a “Supervision Training for Managers” course yesterday afternoon and realised I’d been doing supervision sessions with my staff (I currently manage 6 staff) all wrong! Oops.

Apparently, where I’ve been going wrong is to discuss both supervision AND management issues in a supervision session. This begs the question: “what’s the difference between the two?!”.

Management issues are the usual run of the mill, day to day things like annual leave, toil, outreach, general admin etc., whereas supervision should be focusing on the individual supervisee; their wellbeing, personal development and training, feedback from clients – both positive and negative – and have to be linked to the organisation’s overall strategic objectives. Phew!

I’m on another course today, “Non-employment discrimination”, so a return to more “legal” matters!

Do I really need an excuse to upload a picture of my gorgeous little boy?!

I reach the tender age of 30 this year, and I do think I’m lucky in the sense that my life is perfect. My issue is, is it really that perfect? Should I, at the very least, be thinking that it is perfect?

First of all, how does one define “perfect”? Does it mean perfect as in “I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted” or does it mean “I have everything ‘normal’ people should have”?

My life is perfect in the sense that I have a gorgeous wife, a smashing little boy, a job that I love (sometimes!) with a bunch of people I’m close to, a nice roof over my head, a fairly new car, and I get pretty much anything I want, when I want it, as I have the financially stability to do so.

However, I still want more (don’t we all?!). I’d love to get a job closer to home to reduce the amount of travelling I do (hey, I’m not getting any younger!), which would give me the added bonus of seeing my little family every single day. I want an Audi TT (preferably brand new!) and a mansion with an indoor swimming pool! At particularly stressful times at work, I want peace and quiet. I want, I want, I want … !

Does the fact that I want more than I already have mean that my life is not perfect after all? Or am I just being greedy?

I’ve finally got back into the habit of checking out my Bloglines account regularly courtesy of my new iPhone, which makes it so easy (check out http://i.bloglines.com

I’ve been catching up on some blogs and there are some pretty good ones out there. If you have any suggestions as to what I should be checking out, let me know.