Congratulations to OMs Nick Wright and Tim Benham-Mirando who appeared in The Times this week as they have each received one of the Inns of Court Scholarships for 2016-17.

There are four Inns of Court; Gray’s, Inner Temple, Lincoln’s Inn and Middle Temple, and their scholarship systems help to support students through their legal studies and it is Lincoln’s Inn which has awarded these two OMs their scholarships. Tim has received a BPTC (Bar Professional Training Course) award and Nick a CPE (Common Professional Examination) award.

The process for applying and being awarded these scholarships is extremely complicated and demanding, including an interview with the committee, but to simplify; as Eamonn O’Reilly, the scholarships and students manager at Inner Temple says: “All the four Inns are different. We all have a scholarships fund and we all give money out, mostly on merit, using different kinds of means testing to fine tune that. The scholarships committees think, ‘Does this person have a good chance of succeeding at the Bar?’ That’s the bottom line.”

So Nick and Tim are clearly heading for very impressive careers in law and we at Monmouth School wish them every success.