The Pupillage Interview/Acceptance/Rejection Thread 2012

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Good grief!
I happen to know who this chap is (no, it is not me before you ask!). He IS a qualified higher rights advocate, and therefore a solicitor. He WAS offered pupillage AND training contract positions, due I would imagine to the fact that he did both the LPC and BVC (unusual, but can happen!).
I thought it would be useful (certainly for me as I am still looking for the elusive pupillage position) to mention on this thread, in the spirit of mutual help & support to each other, to mention it to fellow readers.
Inconsistencies? Ambiguous?
The poor sod has only made a couple of posts!

It was ME who put the link on here, and in doing so, I just wanted to point out something that MAY (or may not) be useful. If you read it, good. If you don't, great. But give the man a break.

Reply 41

Kessler`

honestjohn,

Please don't misunderstand the previous posts. No-one, at least as far as I am aware, is intending to criticise the fellow or demean him in any way. Whichever branch of the profession he is, I'm sure that he'll have worked hard to get there.

However, what you must remember is that there are people reading these forums - particularly this thread - who may take blog posts and/or the author as gospel truth. That, particularly in the atmosphere of pupillage interviews, can be very dangerous in terms of applicants who are trying to gain a perspective of practice and/or what they should be aiming for. All we are trying to do here is shed a little light on the blogger's background, since that information was lacking in the first instance.

I, for one, would like to find out why he chose to complete the LPC after the BVC, even when holding a pupillage offer, as well as understanding more about his reasons for following his chosen career path. I suspect that sort of knowledge would be extremely useful here, especially for the more unfortunate in August.

Reply 42

FMQ

Original post by honest john

Why would anyone do this? If he did the LPC first then was not offered a tc why would he ever contemplate the BVC knowing getting pupillage was even harder ? And if he did the BVC first why would he not have gone the immediate QLTT route which he could have started working towards the day after call, rather than spending time on the LPC then waiting around for a TC? It would be really interesting if you could get a definitive answer on this.

Reply 43

PupillageGirly

Has anyone had an interview at East Anglian Chambers before- I'm just wondering when I should expect to hear back after a 1st round interview??

Original post by vh123

Any idea how many they are interviewing at Northampton chambers? or what the first round consists of?

I'm not sure, the second rounds are the next weekend so I imagine they're only interviewing one day?

Reply 44

Crazy Jamie

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by honest john

Inconsistencies? Ambiguous?
The poor sod has only made a couple of posts!

Yes, and his first one was ambiguous. As Kessler said, we are not trying to be malicious here. He is putting himself in a position where he clearly intends to provide information to those looking to get into the profession. It is therefore important that the information he provides is clear and accurate. He has every opportunity to clarify matters in his future posts, and I think we all hope that he does do that, because more clear and detailed information on his background and path to where he is know could be genuinely useful for some applicants.

Too much posturing.

Hmmmm pupillage......NOM NOM

Reply 47

vh123

Original post by PupillageGirly

Has anyone had an interview at East Anglian Chambers before- I'm just wondering when I should expect to hear back after a 1st round interview??

I'm not sure, the second rounds are the next weekend so I imagine they're only interviewing one day?

Yeah so surely they will not be interviewing that many?
Any idea what the interview consists of?

Reply 48

younglawyer

I found this, might be useful to you guys applying for the East Anglian Chambers:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/jan/21/law-rupert-myers-barrister-pupillage-interviews

:smile:

Regards,

M

Reply 49

third time lucky

Hello. Does anyone have any advice to offer about non-OLPAS applications by CV+ cover letter? For example, should the CV be restricted to one page? First season of attempting the CV/cover applications! Any tips welcome..

Reply 50

ProBono

I've just had a look the the Baricitor blog and I agree that it does have capacity to be an extremely useful blog, particularly for those of us interested in criminal practice and who may have to consider the solicitor route to qualification.

Those considering a career as a criminal advocate however, need to understand that there are significant differences between the professions and that there is certainly no such thing as a baricitor. You are either a barrister or a solicitor, but not both.

The gentleman or lady author of this blog is a solicitor advocate and while the author may believe he is unique, he/she is not. One only has to spend a day in a typical crown court to see that there are many solicitor advocates.

I am grateful to the author of the baricitor blog for starting it and I hope it is a blog which provides a useful insight into the work of solicitor advocates. I and many other aspirant criminal advocates will be very grateful for that.

anyway...back to pupillage applications...

Reply 51

ProBono

Original post by third time lucky

I've always been told to keep the CV to two sides of A4 but no more. Do make sure you get your CV looked over by someone you trust, Ideally if you know barristers get it checked by them. We had barristers as tutors on the BPTC and they were more than happy to glance over our CV's. Their advice was invaluable.

If you are struggling to get started there are many books on the subject of legal CVs and you should have some of these in your law library. Alternatively I found this website through a Google search. I think It's good to use as a starting point.

http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/cv/cvexamples.htm

Good luck!

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 52

Crazy Jamie

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by third time lucky

The generally quoted rule is that your CV should be no longer than two sides of A4, which is good advice to follow. Keeping it to one side doesn't give you enough space, and more than two runs the risk of be too long winded for those reading it. Remember that barristers on a pupillage committee have hundreds of CVs to look through. They will not, therefore, be examining your CV with a fine tooth comb; they will be spending a couple of minutes at most with it. You have to ensure that the important parts of your CV stand out whilst being concise enough to give the reader sufficient information that they will want to invite you for interview.

Reply 53

third time lucky

Original post by ProBono

I'm glad you both agree one page is unrealistic! (I had stumbled across this piece of 'wisdom' in a College of Law manual). Thanks for the replies, back to the grindstone I go.

Reply 54

Norton1

Original post by third time lucky

I'm glad you both agree one page is unrealistic! (I had stumbled across this piece of 'wisdom' in a College of Law manual). Thanks for the replies, back to the grindstone I go.

I think the form is to put it on two separate pages, not one page front and back.

Reply 55

Isherwood100

Original post by third time lucky

I found this somewhat helpful re cover letters (not great, but better than nothing): www.college-of-law.co.uk/Careers-Service-University/bar_cover/

One piece of advice my tutor gave me was to make sure that you reference your CV at least once in your CL, to make sure they actually pay attention to it, eg 'As shown in my CV, I am an accomplished goatherder/karaoke singer/egotist'.

Reply 56

SevenStars

Original post by third time lucky

I'm glad you both agree one page is unrealistic! (I had stumbled across this piece of 'wisdom' in a College of Law manual). Thanks for the replies, back to the grindstone I go.

I seem to recall last year some chambers asked for a one page CV - in which case that is what you should send, irrespective of how unrealistic it is.

Good luck with the apps. :smile:

Reply 57

yellowhannah33

Glad to see the 2012 thread is up and running - already 3 pages! This thread kept me going through two years of applying for pupillage and I'd be happy to answer queries people think i might be able to help with either publicly or by DM. I applied to mainly mixed sets with a focus on PI/Employment and general common law.

That being said, I applied to a lot of the commercial sets who opened applications in January because I wanted to garner as much experience as possible with interviews - it's really tough that people will have to wait until August for their offers from these sets. Although I would imagine from threads like this one and 'wink and nod' correspondence with the Sets themselves people will have an idea before August if they've been successful.

Reply 58

younglawyer

Original post by yellowhannah33

I'm glad you mentioned PI. I want to go down the same route but was wondering what you did in the gap between graduation/call to the Bar and attaining pupillage. Also, post-BPTC, what did you do to gain advocacy experience?

Many thanks.

M

Reply 59

Isherwood100

Original post by yellowhannah33

That being said, I applied to a lot of the commercial sets who opened applications in January because I wanted to garner as much experience as possible with interviews - it's really tough that people will have to wait until August for their offers from these sets. Although I would imagine from threads like this one and 'wink and nod' correspondence with the Sets themselves people will have an idea before August if they've been successful.

Although I know the BSB have said they're implementing it, I don't think that the coordinated timetable is in place for this year - at least, most of the sets to which I'm applying now are still saying they'll be making offers in February/March. Thank heavens.