Therefore, to that extent at least, you control the narrative of your interview. Read the newspapers. Debate-related pupillage interview questions are more difficult to prepare for, but you won't be expected to solve a specific problem in two minutes. See examples of competency-based questions, Find out how to answer questions about legal news, Get prepared for whatever the interviewer throws at you. Perceptions change in practice. Make sure to ask for feedback. Registered in England and Wales with Company Number 08037587. Should minors be charged as adults for heinous crimes? 1. I find this poor. For example, the recent 2022 Johnny Depp and Amber Heard libel case could be a good one to cover. According to student feedback, the most common exercise is an advocacy test of some description, or a presentation. (Life at the Bar is much the same.) This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Id only add that for most applicants its intimidating being interviewed by barristers. Used by Microsoft as a unique identifier. There are even UK nationals who secure jobs abroad during the time in-between the BTC and pupillage who are now at a disadvantage. There are a million variables that may influence your chances in any given interview. We dont expect you to know anything about that, but commercial practice more generally). For all the latest commercial awareness info, and advance notification of Legal Cheek's careers events: Follows letter from wannabe barrister first reported by Legal Cheek, Aspiring barrister Noah Gifford describes common practice among chambers as insulting in open letter. Mock interviews are essential. Many will have impressive previous careers, either in law or outside, and as a twenty-something BPTC graduate, it is easy to be gripped by inferiority. Tip 5: Be engaging. You cannot control what they interviewers say and what they think. I have copied in extracts from the talk for your ease of reference, but I would really recommend making the time to watch the full talk. Your substantive legal knowledge is not being tested (legal materials are usually provided) hence you cannot prepare for the exercise in a formal sense. This will help you to learn from your interview experience, so that next time, you have a greater chance at success. The second is developing a solution which you know helps you to calm down this is different for everyone. LOLZ! You will deserve everything you get. They ought to be making reasonable adjustments for you. Here is a short list of competencies for the Bar: Getting into the Bar requires resilience, adaptability and determination. BTC graduate and aspiring barrister Kieran Alker recounts his frustrating experience and suggests a way to improve the process. Articulate and perfect them. Tip 3: Be ready to talk about things on your CV in more detail, and also to explain any gaps there may be on your CV. This does not mean to say you will not be brilliant in another application or another career if you decide to move, but failure is just something you are going to have to get used to mortifying, humiliating and painful as it is, because it will be part of your working life. Some questions you could be asked include: This question is asked to assess your advocacy skills and your ability to present a reasoned, logical, compelling and well-structured argument. SA'AD'S TOP TIPS INCLUDE: Tip 1: If you get through the pupillage application stage and you are now preparing for a pupillage interview, well done. But dont be arrogant, and dont bullshit to try to preserve the illusion of confidence interviewers are likely to see through that so if you dont know, say so. for a first-round interview or to candidates who attended a first-round interview but did not reach a second-round interview. we gear our entire lives around trying to secure one. At my first ever interview, I span a fluffy cat story about how I was inspired by the story of somebody I met on a mini-pupillage, and how I aspired to tread in their footsteps. Aspects of this include how articulate, confident and perceptive you are. This question is deliberately asked to assess your commitment to the Bar. It is also about being able to balance intellectual competence with common sense and pragmatism. O - Open minded Some people might feel like they have no idea what type of law they want to get into, so they might opt for a general common law type pupillage (which is much more normal outside of London). Barristers in chambers often work as a collective to solve problems. See our top tips on commercial pupillage . The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". I was so bad because I thought I had the answers in my head, but I had not practised getting them out. Or are you proactive, responsive and adaptable? If, for example, you see something on the chambers website about an individual barrister, or a blog or news section that particularly appealed to you, these are the sorts of things you should think about talking about. When it comes to feedback, it's always good to have a few examples of interview feedback ready to go. The fact that a chambers (as in this case), can congratulate you for securing a second-round interview, and identify how incredibly competitive the process was, in the same email as refusing to provide feedback, to me is confusing and demonstrates a reluctance to help future colleagues in contradiction to the posts I see on social media platforms all the time from members of the profession. 30 pupillage interview questions (plus example answers) When you're done with your law degree and want to become a barrister or advocate, the next stage is often a pupillage. You will be giving a variant of an answer the panel has heard a thousand times before. But because that is the case, expecting people to be in the same country, let alone close vicinity, that far in . A lack of questions could be perceived as a lack of interest, so ensure that you have your questions to hand or memorised, because you wont get another opportunity to ask them. Line up a few of these during your interview prep. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. Looking back, I was fortunate not to have a chair thrown at me. We hope the above helps and we would love to hear from you in the comments below if it does. If the Set interviewing you does not go for it, then they are not the right Set for you. As a result, chambers can be highly individualistic. TargetJobs Laws YouTube channel has many years of videos of the talks given at their National Pupillage Fair by barristers across all the practice areas this is information straight from the horses mouth. Recognise your achievement. How do we force cowardly murderers to face up to what they have done? When watching the case, do not look at what the senior members of chambers are doing alone, look at what the juniors are doing. Advocacy and presentation skills: the ability to present clear, concise and logical arguments in a lucid and self-assured way. Chambers websites, and the individual barristers pages on those websites, are good, but online directories will give you an idea which areas those chambers really have their reputation in. Just engage with the questions you are being asked. To describe a time you had to act on your own initiative, draw on your experiences to clearly demonstrate the problem or challenge you faced, how you overcame it and the result of your actions. What separates you from the herd in the eyes of the interviewers is often wholly arbitrary and unexpected. Look at their website, but not just their website. Go through your whole form, identify all the points you might be asked to elaborate on (these will be points which relate to the selection criteria), and do this for every single one. We ask any questions? at the end, but most people say no and personally Im not impressed by question-askers. The instructions vary on the chambers and the types of problems that they set. According to The Inner Temple, this is a genuine question asked by some chambers interview panels. No legal questions or knowledge required. Practise with a friend. This cookie is set by LinkedIn and used for routing. Its boring but it works. Forget clich and invention and speak plainly. These are some of the most widely debated topics in law, both historically and today. As an advocate, your very purpose is to convince the Court that you have the better case; an interview is no different. Have you applied for pupillage but feeling unsure about what the interview process will be like?In this video, you will receive advice from members of Coram . There are three reasons, in my view. I feel strongly that the profession needs to change the way it operates and recruits because of the young talent it ultimately passes by, and I feel that making personalised feedback mandatory for candidates who have secured an interview, would be one very small way of changing it for the better. Having relevant questions for pupillage interview panels demonstrates that you have a genuine interest in their chambers. Competency is not all about how you perform as a barrister, its also about how you react in the face of adversity. Now you need to prepare. This is usually shown through your academic achievements and publications. They are as follows: Treat it like an exam and make time to revise for your interview. So incredible, that I had to divide the article into two parts: the first article (this one) focuses on tips from silks (essentially a view from the top); and the second article, which will be released in the near future (so keep a look out! Can you think logically and present your arguments succinctly and persuasively? Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Tip 2: Structure your answers. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. All of the skills above are what you should be thinking about in your daily life that you can apply to them. So it can be helpful to set yourself at ease. Don't be too arrogant "when I get pupillage here I will". You have got to be curious. Tip 5: You will be nervous (if you are human), but try to relax and be normal, without being matey or inappropriately informal. Listening to music. Debate-Related Pupillage Interview Questions. This is a question that genuinely seeks to discover how a chambers can best help you develop if there is an aspect of pupillage you could find difficult. Going out for a walk. If you narrow down your options too much, you might be missing opportunities for yourself. In other words, you are not expected to identify ten points and read off the leading Supreme Court cases about those points. For the most part, the truthful answer will be: Because you are a chambers, any chambers, and I would literally accept a pupillage in a chambers run by bees at this moment in time. Again, its a nasty question that interviewers know is near-impossible to answer. Unstructured answers are apt to confuse, or to suggest confused thinking. Have you been able to use what you learned yourself, whether in a moot or discussion with a university committee or something else? However, there are certain qualities that chambers tend to look for in prospective pupils. Many will have Masters degrees. One of the things I struggled with in 2017 as an aspiring barrister (especially as an individual that moved to the UK only for my studies) was finding information in terms of what to expect in the application process, how to prepare and the realities of the journey. To prepare for your interview, you are strongly advised to do the following: It is common for sets of chambers to give you a legal problem to present or a topic to discuss at interview. But there will almost always be a tangential diversion into matters of non-law, often preceded by a vicious, Tell us more about yourself. However, despite this, I found out that I had been unsuccessful at 3pm on 7 May by email, having stared obsessively at my phone all day, waiting to learn of the decision. Read publications and websites such as. Identify them and work on them. Saying something like"I want to come to you because you are a great Set and you do landlord and tenant work", just is not enough. Impact: the way in which you express and handle yourself during interview. Yes, its a lot of work. He completed the bar course with BPP University last year and aspires to become a barrister. It can reveal a lot about your character and the characteristics you potentially view as making someone a good barrister. So elaborate, do not fabricate. Quick Q&A: The Supreme Court decision on John Worboys victims and police failings, pupillage statistics speak for themselves, Heres whats wrong with Labours attack ads on crime. Make sure you have properly understood what it is really like to work at that set and/or in that practice area (broadly described:for example my chambers does construction. One set referred to this as "sparkle". I received no response to this email and therefore, sent a further email on 20 May, once again asking for feedback from the panel, and checking they had received my previous correspondence. The deadlines for mini-pupillage applications are the end of December and June each year. While second-round interviews will vary, the following are by far the most common when going in for second round interviews.
