Aspiring Barrister

You wound me...

After hearing all these things that people are saying I decided to make contact with a top chambers in my city. I sent over my CV and they said they don't see anything wrong with my CV and that I would stand a good chance after getting some relevant experience. thanks for all the feedback as this can help me identify some areas I may need to improve on. impossible is different to hard. if there is a will there is a way.

while it's great that you're getting lots of diff. opinions have you considered that they were being polite and telling you to apply further down the line because that's the easiest way to reply to someone without risking a fight

After hearing all these things that people are saying I decided to make contact with a top chambers in my city. I sent over my CV and they said they don't see anything wrong with my CV and that I would stand a good chance after getting some relevant experience. thanks for all the feedback as this can help me identify some areas I may need to improve on. impossible is different to hard. if there is a will there is a way.

After hearing all these things that people are saying I decided to make contact with a top chambers in my city. I sent over my CV and they said they don't see anything wrong with my CV and that I would stand a good chance after getting some relevant experience. thanks for all the feedback as this can help me identify some areas I may need to improve on. impossible is different to hard. if there is a will there is a way.

I would be very wary of that advice, as it sounds to me that it is high on optimism and low on realism. Which, of course, is what you'd expect to a degree. To be blunt, I expect that they were being polite.

The difficulty is not that you haven't achieved based on what were clearly very trying circumstances when you were doing your A-Levels. You have, and you should be very proud of your degree and becoming a nurse. You are also correct to say that your A-Level results don't reflect you and don't reflect your ability. I think most sets would accept that. The problem is that no set would know based on your current CV what your current level actually is, because your degree, whilst impressive in isolation, has very little relevance to a career as a barrister. At the moment you could argue that there is nothing here to hold you back when looked at in the round, but at the same time there isn't anything to push you forward either. You haven't ticked any of the many boxes required to have a realistic shot of securing pupillage. You haven't done the GDL, haven't done mini pupillages and other relevant experience, haven't applied for any scholarships, haven't done the Bar course, and haven't secured any relevant work experience in a paid role. So at the moment, you wouldn't stand any chance at all of making it through a paper sift. If you do all of that and excel at it, could you become a barrister? Yes, I think so, and that's probably why you've been told by that chambers that they don't see anything wrong with it. In reality, that is a very long path that will require a lot of time and money that will make demands of you (in terms of academic ability and otherwise) that you have never had before. The question is whether you're willing to take that risk. You say "where there's a will there's a way" but that's not true. You have to have the ability to do this and have to either have the skills or be able to develop them. That's not something everyone can do no matter how much they want it. You have a lot of ground to make up here and, in the round, I'd suggest that it's unlikely that you can make it up. But I don't know you, and it is for you to assess whether or not that's a path that you want to pursue. All I would urge is for you to make a realistic assessment in that regard. The points that @Blayze have made so far are entirely valid, and you really do need to be aware of how difficult converting to law and securing pupillage would be.

On a side note, @Amira_Jade, I know you are well meaning, but you need to be very careful of giving advice on subjects that you don't know very much about. You have massively confused the route that applicants need to take to become a barrister with other legal professions, and that runs the risk of people being given an inaccurate view of what is expected of them. To pick a few, pupillage is one year and not two, there are not apprenticeships to become a barrister, and Chambers will not (indeed, they cannot) be flexible as to the minimum requirements for becoming a barrister. There are also not 'firms' of barristers. They are 'chambers' or 'sets'. As I say, I entirely acknowledge that you're well meaning, but you need to know about these things if you're going to give out advice on them, particularly when there's the potential for people to make life changing decisions based on the advice you give.

Thanks for educating me on this subject as I realise from your comments that I've used the wrong terminology however this was advice that was given to me by a Barrister where I live. In fact this is the route that I am following myself so I am also now rather confused. Could you advise the actual route in which you think would be sensible if you are aspiring to become a Barrister and you have already embarked on a Qualifying Law Degree? Thanks for your help in advance!

Qualifying Law Degree OR Non-Law Degree plus the GDL --> Bar Course (one year) --> Pupillage (one year, split into a non practising first six months and a practising second six months, often referred to as 'first six' and 'second six') --> Tenancy (where the set decides whether or not to take you on as a fully fledged member of chambers; if they do not you need to find a 'third six' or tenancy elsewhere)

Those are the minimum required steps that you must take to become a barrister. The only exceptions are if you are transferring to the Bar from another relevant profession (predominantly a solicitor), in which case you can receive an exemption for certain parts of that (you can get a reduction in the length of pupillage, for example). But those exceptions are generally not applicable for the purposes of advice on a forum like this one, or to students in general.

Obviously that is the minimum, and whilst you have to tick those boxes to actually become a practising barrister, there are a lot of other boxes that you will need to tick in terms of relevant experience and such in order to secure pupillage. In reality everyone's path is different, and you need to make the decisions that you are best for you in terms of how you develop your experience and skills. Relatively few people get pupillage straight after (or before/during) the Bar course as well, so realistically once you've finished the Bar course you are likely to need to put some sort of plan in place as to how you're going to find relevant work that can help you to continue to build on the experience and skills that you already have. You have five years to secure pupillage after completing the Bar course, and in reality you should expect that it will take some time after completion of that course before you do secure pupillage, and you need to manage your expectations and plan accordingly.

I would be very wary of that advice, as it sounds to me that it is high on optimism and low on realism. Which, of course, is what you'd expect to a degree. To be blunt, I expect that they were being polite.

The difficulty is not that you haven't achieved based on what were clearly very trying circumstances when you were doing your A-Levels. You have, and you should be very proud of your degree and becoming a nurse. You are also correct to say that your A-Level results don't reflect you and don't reflect your ability. I think most sets would accept that. The problem is that no set would know based on your current CV what your current level actually is, because your degree, whilst impressive in isolation, has very little relevance to a career as a barrister. At the moment you could argue that there is nothing here to hold you back when looked at in the round, but at the same time there isn't anything to push you forward either. You haven't ticked any of the many boxes required to have a realistic shot of securing pupillage. You haven't done the GDL, haven't done mini pupillages and other relevant experience, haven't applied for any scholarships, haven't done the Bar course, and haven't secured any relevant work experience in a paid role. So at the moment, you wouldn't stand any chance at all of making it through a paper sift. If you do all of that and excel at it, could you become a barrister? Yes, I think so, and that's probably why you've been told by that chambers that they don't see anything wrong with it. In reality, that is a very long path that will require a lot of time and money that will make demands of you (in terms of academic ability and otherwise) that you have never had before. The question is whether you're willing to take that risk. You say "where there's a will there's a way" but that's not true. You have to have the ability to do this and have to either have the skills or be able to develop them. That's not something everyone can do no matter how much they want it. You have a lot of ground to make up here and, in the round, I'd suggest that it's unlikely that you can make it up. But I don't know you, and it is for you to assess whether or not that's a path that you want to pursue. All I would urge is for you to make a realistic assessment in that regard. The points that @Blayze have made so far are entirely valid, and you really do need to be aware of how difficult converting to law and securing pupillage would be.

On a side note, @Amira_Jade, I know you are well meaning, but you need to be very careful of giving advice on subjects that you don't know very much about. You have massively confused the route that applicants need to take to become a barrister with other legal professions, and that runs the risk of people being given an inaccurate view of what is expected of them. To pick a few, pupillage is one year and not two, there are not apprenticeships to become a barrister, and Chambers will not (indeed, they cannot) be flexible as to the minimum requirements for becoming a barrister. There are also not 'firms' of barristers. They are 'chambers' or 'sets'. As I say, I entirely acknowledge that you're well meaning, but you need to know about these things if you're going to give out advice on them, particularly when there's the potential for people to make life changing decisions based on the advice you give.

1. Which City?
2. Which area of law?
3. What was your BTEC in?

Luckily there is a high demand for local lawyers here.

Yep that's what I'm thinking. Also are you sure they were a real firm? if ur saying they carefully processed and replied to you about your CV in the 3 hours that we've been discussing this topic?

I am certain they are a real firm. I phoned the manager of recruitment and pupillage at the chambers and spoke with her in detail about my chances asking for honest and realistic opinions around my chance of pupilage. As yourselves have stated, she did say that in general pupillage is not an easy road to take (which I am very aware of). However she said there is no stand out reasons that i would not be considered for pupillage.

Oh ok I see. Well it's brilliant that you've done all the research and you're intent on pursuing this career choice. Good luck with it!

Hello - confusingly I have a similar username to @barrister98.

I would echo @Crazy Jamie and @Blayze's comments here, with a slightly different nuance and warning to others.

(1) It is functionally useless for people to continually reply to posts like this saying things like "only people with amazing grades get pupillage" because it is incoherent to discuss "the Bar" as a unified profession with even vaguely homogenous standards. Some parts of the Bar (generally London commercial/chancery sets) are looking for a very high academic standard which, for better or worse, is impossible/implausible to substantially change after your undergraduate degree; other types of chambers are looking for authentic advocacy, people skills, ability to deal with vulnerable adults and children, propensity for hard work etc. Your BTEC in health and social care is an asset if you were to want to pursue a career at the Bar in those areas of law, albeit it will not cut it in academic terms at most London commercial/chancery/civil sets.

(2) I am generally of the view that people are really, really, really bad at hedging when they apply for the Bar. All chambers are competitive and none of us sailed through the process. Similarly, vanishingly few of us have unlimited assets of time/money/self-belief to throw at our pursuit of becoming a barrister. @Crazy Jamie outlined some aspects above (mini-pupillages, legal experience, legal education) which would be helpful to your application. You need to fashion, on first glance at your CV, a coherent narrative of what you have done to become a barrister and what sort of work you want to do.

That said, part of being realistic is understanding that the process will take time and that it may not be successful at the end of the day. I try to spend some time on this forum persuading people not to take on implausible and unnecessary debt by putting all their eggs in one basket. There is absolutely no rush to go to the Bar; many people transfer from other professions. If I were you, this is the approach I would take. Finish your BTEC, spend some time working as a healthcare or social care professional; when you have saved some money, consider doing a GDL and then transferring to become e.g. a paralegal. Do this for a while - if you enjoy it, keep going and you can then apply for pupillage. At all stages, try to think: if I didn't get pupillage, would I still be in a reasonable situation?

I know many people - with Oxbridge firsts, Harvard LLMs, the entire range - who are now in a lot of debt and wake up at night worrying about it. Some have taken on debt to complete the BPTC, which is, imho, insane. (If I could give you one piece of advice in this entire post it is not to go into debt for your legal education, except, if absolutely necessary, for your GDL; nothing is worth it).

tl;dr: You can become a barrister at some chambers if you work hard and are intelligent and patient about working out to get from A to G. This will require you to go via B, C, D, E and F, and you may feel or find yourself "stuck" at any one point. Try to ensure you are making money, or at least not going into substantial debt, at all these points; the cost of the BPTC is not worth it until you have an offer of pupillage.

@barrister1996 Thank you for this very succinct explanation around this all. I think you offer a balanced outlook upon my situation. I would however like to clarify that i have completed my BTEC achieving a DDM, and i have also completed my adult nursing degree achieving a 1:1. I have also worked as a nurse for 16 months in various areas of the hospital. I completely agree with you in gaining legal experience and also around the point of firstly acquiring pupillage before undertaking the BPTC. i have been accepted onto the GDL however i have not currently confirmed my place, however i am almost certain that it is worth taking this first step towards my goal of becoming a barrister. I have also secured 2 mini pupilages and look to further my chances by undertaking some pro-bono work and getting involved in as much mooting as possible.