Do lawyers have the best bums?
A law student has been crowned the winner of the University of Cambridge’s annual ‘best bum’ competition — the second time in two years that a future lawyer has scooped the unusual accolade.
The undergraduate — who is identified only as ‘Vita’ and is reading law at Cambridge’s prestigious Gonville & Caius College — garnered 24.32% of the vote in a unisex competition run by student newspaper The Tab.
Braving the autumn chill, Vita’s winning entry (pictured top) shows her naked against an oak tree in what appears to be one of Cambridge’s sprawling sports fields.
The law student’s win follows last year’s triumph by a Homerton College law student identified as ‘Polly’, who won the controversial award after posing nude in one of the university’s lecture halls.
Legal Cheek reached out to a host of lawyers to see what they made of the competition. In particular, we were keen to find out how the publicity from participating in such a challenge could affect students’ training contract hopes.
Noting that it was open to both men and women, the ones who responded to our requests for comment took the view that it was just a bit of fun.
Dana Denis-Smith, founder of the women in law First 100 Years project, said:
“It’s a bummer if she doesn’t get her training contract but at least she can feel better in her body, which is no small thing.”
Speaking anonymously, a female law student at Cambridge who didn’t enter the competition echoed this sentiment, telling us:
“It should be universally accepted that young women have the right to enter a ‘cheeky’ (pardon the pun) competition for fun without her place and value in society being undermined. I personally had no idea this contest existed or I might have considered entering myself!”
Ultimately it’s Vita’s feelings that matter most here, and her entry seems to have positively impacted her body confidence. After revealing that her “formative years were full of angst and self-criticism,” she continued:
“In such a straight-up-and-down world, I despaired over the dimples and dents in my rather sizeable arse and thighs. My ever-solicitous mother consoled my lamentation by assuring me that, in time, such assets would transform from a source of shame to one of pride.”