With Behind the Scenes at BLS we talk to a different member of our community and share their stories with you online. This week Omotoyosi Adeparusi talks about the experience of being a Black man poised to enter the legal profession.
My name is Omotoyosi Adeparusi and I am currently in my second year at the University of Birmingham studying Law LLB. The reason I chose law is because of my passion for the real estate sector and how it works. I have always been interested in real estate as it affects almost every sector in this country. I wanted to understand how the real estate sector functions in terms of ownership and the rights and responsibilities of those owners.
As a whole, I see law as somewhat old fashioned; this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it changes my approach to the course. I often find myself taking a step back in time to familiarise myself with unknown terminology. Law has made me understand how society functions and the reasons for its functions. For example, during my time studying contract law, I found out that when there are contractual disputes between consumers and business’, the law often works in favour of the consumer. This is in order to protect the consumers rights. However, the law itself is not perfect and the margin for error is wide in a lot of places. This could be seen as a negative, of the old-fashioned legal system in the UK. Nonetheless, I enjoy being critical about the law especially in areas where major law reform is needed. For instance, it is a well-known fact that technology and online connectivity is growing at an exponential rate worldwide and the law is struggling to keep up. More laws need to be introduced to protect online users and to regulate how data is used by massive corporations such as Facebook.
As a Black man studying law and hoping to gain a profession in law there are barriers. This is due to the norms of what counts as success, ability and competence in society and what these norms are perceived to look like physically. However, society is slowly changing and diversity across all legal sectors are improving. This university in particular has provided an extensive list of career opportunities to me to which I am grateful. To conclude, the main reason I want to be involved in the law, is because I understand that the law is a pivotal part of this country’s growth and progression towards parity in all communities.