The Blog

• 21st May 2012: What's happened so far?
  
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    As you'll see in the 'Bio' section, The Pupillage Pages have asked me to write about the ups and downs of applying for pupillage, as someone who is in the middle of it all at the moment. However, we're now a couple of weeks into the process, so I thought I should bring you up to date.
    
    
    Last year, I got let down by a Set who offered me pupillage "subject to confirmation from the finance committee", and then never called me again. Frankly, last year I was unprepared for the process - I did very little research, chose Sets on a whim, or just on what I'd heard from others. I did not apply to the most appropriate Chambers for me. As someone whose sole desire (in terms of a career) is to practise at the Criminal Bar, applying to mixed sets was not the brightest move - I simply could not demonstrate an interest in their area of work. I didn't even apply to any non-OLPAS sets (chambers that recruit outside of the central Pupillage Portal system).

    
    

    I am someone who has never had a problem in interviews in the past - but until you've gone through a pupillage interview you just can't know how hard it is. Barristers sniff out lies for a living, their job is to expose holes in argument, to turn people inside out (well, part of their job at least). Sitting on the opposite side of a table to 5 or 6 experienced practitioners is a terrifying experience. So, despite the cockups in my applications last year, going through the experience, suffering a few interviews and getting a feel for what is expected was invaluable.

    
    

    The Pupillage Portal opens every year in late March - having learned from my experiences, this year I started preparing in January. My mid-March I'd identified my 'top' 15 or 16 Sets, from which I would have to choose 12. I'd also identified all of the non-OLPAS Criminal Sets, how to apply, and their deadlines. Once the form itself was released to applicants, I recruited about a dozen friends to look over my first draft - most of them barristers. Knowing that the application website is prone to crash on the deadline day due to weight of numbers trying to connect to it, I submitted my form to my 12 chosen Sets 4 or 5 days in advance. Now I'm waiting for the first of them to get in touch.

    
    

    In this blog I will be letting you know about every twist and turn I experience this summer - I'll be letting you know about what happens with each of the Sets in turn. I will not, however, be naming Sets. Instead, the OLPAS sets will simply be called "Set 1", "Set 2" etc. The non-OLPAS applications, including an application to a government department, will be "Set 13", "Set 14" etc. Because of the anonymity I can be completely honest about what's going on.

    
    

    I will NOT be detailing what questions are asked in interviews (should I get any), purely because I don't want to give any of my competition for pupillage an advantage. I will, however, talk in broad terms about how I think things have gone, and any other information I think might be of interest.
    
    
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• 26th May 2012: The waiting game
  
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    It's been a slow week.
    
    
    Aside from the government department inviting me to complete yet another online test, and rumours that one of my chosen Sets has sent out offers (boo, hiss, 'rejection by silence' in the offing), nothing has happened. I'm not really surprised, as I'm applying to purely Crime Sets this is to be expected. Every year, Criminal Sets take their time. I've been through the various pupillage discussion forums and the pattern is clear - Chancery and Tax Sets (non-OLPAS) sort out everything in January, non-Crime OLPAS Sets start replying from mid-to-late May, and then continue fairly regularly til the end of June, Crime Sets are a law unto themselves. Commonly you'll hear nothing until mid-June and then receive 8 rejections in three days giving you the very strong impression that no one will ever love you. Not even your mum.
    
    
    I know that I won't hear much for another couple of weeks, I know that I should be taking this time to relax, I know I should be trying to forget about OLPAS and pupillage. Barristers (and baby-barristers like me) should be inherently rational creatures, we should be able to ignore the emotion of a situation and focus on the facts, and getting the right result. When seeking pupillage, nothing could be further from the truth.
    
    
    Everyone is on edge. We can't lose sight of just how much all of this matters. We are aware of the statistics: three quarters of us won't get pupillage. We know all too well that we might have wasted sixteen thousand pounds. To be honest, I wouldn't expect anyone to be rational at the moment.
    
    
    There is, however, a peculiar breed of smiling-smug-student which you can find serenely wandering around Law School, happy, safe and snug with their already achieved pupillages. Did you ever see that prison-football-Vinnie-Jones movie "Mean Machine"? It's beyond reproach. Anyhow, Jason Statham (in his first role since Lock, Stock) plays a psychotic goalkeeper for the inmates' team, who is prone to violent flights of fancy where he finds himself fantasising about attacking his opponents as his eyes glaze over. I experience a similar phenomenon when said-serene-smug-students approach with that very 'understanding' look on their face (eyes slightly closed, small nod of the head, lower lip delicately curled under top lip to demonstrate concern). It's normally accompanied by: "Oh Mini, how's it all going? Tough out there, isn't it? I'm sure you'll be fine. But, ya know, you've got 5 years til your qualification goes stale, so chin up". They are lucky to survive such an encounter.
    
    
    They don't mean it though, in fact, they're doing absolutely nothing wrong. This is a symptom of the underlying disease - the fact that I, alongside many people in a similar situation, am permanently on edge. While I've been typing this blog, two emails have arrived in my inbox. It's Saturday morning at 9.46. Every sensible barrister is in bed (except those poor second-six Criminal Pupils stuck in Saturday Mags). There is no way, at all, that the emails I have just received could ever have been about pupillage, but I still checked them, tense with anticipation. The emails were idiotic at best - one from an online game I signed up to three years ago and never played, one from an online clothes retailer that I once ordered from which still badgers me offering badly designed suits.
    
    
    One of the Sets I've applied to has promised a response by Monday 28th. One pound says they reply late, but I still sit with my phone, anxious, all day. I hope it's all worth it in the end.
    
    
    
    

• 30th May 2012: The first rejection
  
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    There comes a time in every young man's life when he experiences rejection. For me that rejection was otherwise titled: "Every female I met during my teenage years", but I'm not here to moan.

    
    

    Well, actually, I am; but I'm not here to moan about the embarrassing parade of girls who I never got to know better.

    
    

    No, instead I'm here to moan about the first rejection of the year - like the first Swallow, harbinger of Spring, the first rejection is the deathly herald of another tiresome summer.

    
    

    Now, I know that I still have 14 to hear from, so it's not all bad, but it's still a shame.

    
    

    Anyhow, Set 3: valete!
    
    

• 6th June 2012: If only I were a King
  
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    At the moment, I'm reading a truly excellent book called "1,000 years of annoying the French" by a chap called Stephen Clarke. It's all very pop-history, but completely reinforces everything that my brilliantly francophobic history teacher, Mr Parr, taught me between the ages of 7 and 13. I've just got to the reign of Henry II, and his famous "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" A feeble complaint over dinner saw the arch-bishop of Canterbury dead. The power of the King in the 12th century was a far cry from the remarkably restrained approach epitomised by our delightful Lizzie, and this started me day dreaming about a better world - a world where I could decree the end of the Pupillage Portal, where I could eat jam sandwiches for tea without my fiancee looking at me with despair, and where grown-ups were allowed to play 40/40 or British Bulldog without being thought mad. I used to love schoolyard games.
    
    
    But, I'm not the King, so I must strive ever onwards with these darn applications. Firstly, before I give you my update, a suggestion:
    
    
    Yesterday, on a whim, I went on to the Pupillage Portal website and had a look at the non-OLPAS pupillages - lo and behold, a new criminal pupillage had appeared - one that certainly wasn't there in mid May when I last checked. My suggestion? Have a peek every week or so to see if any new pupillages have been listed - by doing so you could well increase your odds with another application.
    
    
    In my last post, I let you know about my first rejection; in this post I bring happier news - news of my first interview. Yes, the mighty "Set 12" has declared that I am worthy of interview. I am, of course, petrified. Set 12 is known as one of the more 'academic' criminal sets, and I consider my major strengths to have always been in the skills based side of the job, so god knows why they've interviewed me; but we shall see how things go. I now have to start the horrendous preparation process. This may involve buying the Grauniad. Woe.
    
    
    Now, if you read my personal blog, you'll know I'm a bit of a Silk obsessive (a barrister-drama every bit as sublime and ridiculous as you could possibly imagine). I usually keep my Silk-bothering confined to my site, but last night's episode had a hilarious 5 minute section on pupillage interviews. Funniest of all, though, was the fact that their successful candidate interviewed on one day, and started his pupillage on the next. None of that bothersome 14 or 15 month wait that the rest of us have to put up with. If only I were King. 
    
    

• 11th June 2012: This is Sparta!
  
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    Yes, a time comes in every blogger's life when he or she reverts to very obvious, clichéd pop-culture references in the title of a blog post. For me, that day is today.
    
    
    No, I have not been kicking people into pits (despite how tempting it can be to give people a little shove when they're meandering slowly down a tube platform), instead I am referencing the 'Madness' of the pupillage season once it kicks into full swing.
    
    
    For some of my friends this lunacy appeared in January, they got their pupillage, and they've been smiling serenely ever since. For some civil applicants the whole hoopla kicked off a few weeks ago. For crime geeks like me, things are just starting to get tasty.
    
    
    In my last post on this blog, I mentioned my first interview - with Set 12. I'm now even happier - Set 9 and Set 10 have also jumped on the Mini-bandwagon and have asked me to come along and have a chat. My statistics are looking good - three interviews and one rejection so far - with 11 to hear from. I'm also in the process of sending off another application so fairly soon it will be 12 to hear from.
    
    
    Frankly, I've been incredibly lucky. To get 3 from 4 is an absolute dream. But, there's an unhappy side-effect: I'm starting to feel a little guilty around friends who haven't had any luck as yet. I do of course not mean to sound condescending - having been through the process last year, I just know how dispiriting rejections are. So, when some of my friends tell me how badly things are going, and then ask me for an update, I almost want to lie to them and tell them I'm in the same boat. Instead, I tell them the truth - that I've been lucky so far. And that's all it is: luck. I've been lucky to receive help from some very experienced people, and I've been lucky that (in the 90 seconds or so that each Set has to look at each application) they've managed to pick out one or two key words that meant I've received positive news. If they'd looked at a slightly different part of my form, or were in a slightly different mood, those invites could very easily have become rejections.
    
    
    My luck will soon run out - I'm mindful of the fact that I've received as many interviews so far this year as I did in the whole of last year - so I'm actively stopping myself from getting to excited, and trying to steel myself against the inevitable flow of rejections that will soon appear.
    
    
    And it will be very soon. These next two weeks will be the Spartan weeks - the weeks of madness; but also weeks requiring Spartan attitudes: courage, determination and focus. If I'm to keep my fiancée happy, I should also try to avoid adopting the Spartan attitude of seeing women solely as cooks and warrior-factories. With the 'normal' timetable in mind, I would imagine that the Sets I'm yet to hear from will be securely fastening their proverbial roller-skates even as I write this post. I reckon this next fortnight will prove horrendous for some, brilliant for others, and then, a few days before the end of June, we'll all have an idea of how lucky (or otherwise) we were in securing interviews.
    
    
    So back to my friends - much like the Spartans clinging together, shield over shield, at Thermopylae, ready to resist the onslaught of the evil Xerxes - we'll need each other. When I get my 4th rejection within two hours on a wet and rainy Thursday, I am sure they'll turn up with a smile. And gin. Hopefully LOTS of gin.
    
    

• 19th June 2012: Rock around the Clock
  
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    As some of you may remember, on Saturday morning I trotted along for my first pupillage interview. About 20 minutes before my interview I was sat on the bus, typing up THIS post on my "Mini Pupil" blog, a post mainly about my pre-interview superstitions. I didn't, however, post about my biggest superstition of all: which slot to pick if given a choice of times.
    
    
    Now, some Sets don't give you a choice, they look at your 'dates to avoid' section on the OLPAS form, tell you when they want to interview you, and if you're busy: tough luck. In fact, the only excuse that seems to cut the mustard is: "I'm sorry, but another Set has asked me to come in at the same time".
    
    
    If given a choice, though, there can be a couple of approaches:
    
    
    1. I know exactly what I want, and I'm going to ask for it
    2. I want to appear flexible and accommodating, so I'll just ask them to assign me something
    
    
    Of course, there's no right or wrong answer; but I'm very much one of the: "I know what I want and I'm going to ask for it" types.
    
    
    You see, I like the VERY FIRST slot of the day. I have no idea if I'm right or wrong, but here's my thought process:
    
    
    1. Most first round pupillage interviews are held on Saturdays. Barristers often like to have a drink or two on Friday nights (the same can be said, for some barristers, for any night of the week). Even if sober, not everyone is a morning person. Thus, the panel may not be at its 'best' at 9am on a Saturday morning, and you may get a slightly easier ride.
    2. They're not bored yet. The panel will see dozens of people will similar, if not identical, academic and extra curricular records. Catching one episode of Friends is fun, but by the time E4 has shown the 12th episode in a row, you're getting a bit tired. By going first I hope that, at the very least, the panel is still paying attention.
    3. You set the standard. No one has gone before you. There's nothing brilliant to make you look bad, nothing terrible to make the panel feel nauseous. If you're in the first slot you've got a completely fresh slate, no preconceptions, no dread, no fear in the eyes of the head of the committee.
    4. I'm a morning person. I'm freshest between 6am and 10am (I know, not great considering court starts at 10am most days)
    
    
    If I can't get the first of the day, I'll ask for the first of another day (if they're doing more than one day). If that's not possible, I ask for the first slot after lunch. if that's not possible: I take what I'm given.
    
    
    Luckily, of my first rounds, I've managed to book 9am, the first slot of the first day, for four of them. It almost certainly makes no difference, but we all do silly things to get by.
    
    

• 26th June 2012: One Interview Down
  
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    So, tomorrow morning I have the joy of popping along to interview number 2.
    
    
    A Pupillage Pages reader emailed me in the week and asked me what happened in interview number 1. I think it went well. The problem with pupillage interviews is that it is almost impossible to know how they went. Friends of mine have come out of interviews absolutely convinced that they nailed it, but then got the devastating rejection a couple of days later. Likewise, one friend of mine came out of an interview so certain that she'd completely embarrassed herself that when she got home she smashed up her garden furniture. She got the pupillage, and then tenancy. Silly creature.
    
    
    On Wednesday morning one of the tutors at BPP was kind enough to meet me for a mock interview. He relentlessly fired questions at me for nearly an hour and at the end I felt like I'd been in a warzone. He gave me some very useful feedback, but the most important thing was this: "I think you interview very well, I've been on pupillage panels in the past and if you were in front of me, you'd be getting a second round. However, other members of Chambers, depending on how much they had to drink the night before, depending on whether or not they've managed to have a cigarette since breakfast, might hate you. It's completely unpredictable. Just be yourself." And he's right: barristers are expert questioners, experts at putting people at ease and experts at hiding their true feelings. Well, good ones are. So in an interview, you don't know which of those skills they're using at any one time. The rapport you had going with one member of the panel? All lies. That person who gave you a really friendly, encouraging smile that let you know that you didn't need to worry any more, and that you were certain to get a second round? A psychopath.
    
    
    So, forgive me if I say that I *think* interview number 1 went well, and not much more about my hopes for a second round.
    
    
    It was a very general interview, a question about "WHY ON EARTH DO YOU WANT TO COME TO THE CRIMINAL BAR, WE'RE ALL STARVING?!??!?", a general legal question (asked my opinions about a certain legal institution) followed by a couple of CV based questions. Given the fact that I was working in politics for 3 of the last 5 years, I was of course going to get the obligatory: "How do we know you're not just using us to get some experience before running off to become an MP?". Also, I got the very common: "Tell us about a recent case you found interesting". I had one very particular case from the Court of Appeal (Crim) in mind, which I outlined and explained why I found it particularly interesting (I'll give you a hint, I'm a Season Ticket holder at a Premiership football club), and the head of the panel said: "Did you know that I appeared in that case for one of the appelants?", which provoked further discussion and a couple of giggles from the other members of the panel.
    
    
    All in all, I think I performed fairly well, but (as I learned last year, and much like in every other aspect of life) you improve with practice. I've recently been invited to my 6th interview, so hopefully in a couple of weeks I might even be competent.
    
    

• 7th July 2012: You can't always get what you want (but you might get lucky)
  
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    In about an hour I'm going to be sitting in my final first round interview. I mean, I've still got a few to hear from, but this is the last one for now. I've been extraordinarily lucky with first rounds - I've managed to secure 7 in total, from 12 applications - odds I'd have killed for back in March.
    
    
    However, post-first-round it's been horrible.
    
    
    Monday marked a nadir for me - 4 post-interview rejections in one day, and I hadn't been invited to a single second round. I'd always told myself that if I could just secure interviews, everything else would take care of itself; but I was wrong. If I'd been rejected outright by some of these Sets, it would have hit me much less hard. If they'd sent out responses over a number of days, I could have dealt with each little setback individually - but they conspired to attack me all at once, from all sides, and I hit rock bottom.
    
    
    On Monday night, rejections in hand, my fiancée and I went round to a friend's house for his birthday for a bite to eat and a generally relaxed evening. I was horrendous company. Argumentative, boisterous, self-pitying. Pathetic really. It was just the 3 of us, and I kept apologising for how ridiculously I was behaving, but I still think I made his birthday evening a particularly unpleasant affair. He did, however, suggest something to cheer myself up. Do this, do this now: Go to youtube, search for "Too cute". Watch all of the AnimalPlanetTV videos of tiny animals. IT WILL CHEER YOU UP, irrespective of your mood.
    
    
    Oh dear, I've been writing very slowly, and I must leave for the interview... more to come on my return.
    
    
    
    
    ******
    
    
    So, it seemed to go fairly well. I can't talk too much about it because the majority of the interview was an ethics question that everyone will have to deal with, but it was good fun, and a very friendly panel. Anyhow, where was I?
    
    
    Oh yes, kittens. I've never been a cat person, but kitten videos can warm the coldest heart.
    
    
    My cockles were also warmed by two pieces of good news on Wednesday - two second round interviews! Suddenly my conversion rate was looking to be a very healthy 1 in 3, and the sky was full of bluebirds, and the streets were paved with gold, with nice daffodil borders. Better yet, one of the 2nd rounds was at my "dream Set". It felt like someone, somewhere, was finally smiling (or at the very least, smirking) at me.
    
    
    And then Thursday marked my BPTC results - a day I had been dreading. Again, I got lucky and somehow scraped an outstanding. Sadly, when I received the results I was on the train to a part of the country with a remarkably high 'poundland-density' (a good way of measuring the desirability of an area), but even that couldn't spoil my mood.
    
    
    And so today, another first round interview, and another thing to obsess about for days (or weeks). When will it all be over?
    
    
    
    

• 17th July 2012: The empty weekend
  
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    Wednesday night marked my second round interview with my ‘dream Set’. Almost every applicant I know has one – there are some Sets where, simply, you’d sell your grandmother for even a modest increase in your chance of getting a pupillage there. Seeya grannie!
     
    I’m temping at the moment in one of our many, delightful QUANGOs, filing, typing, data entry – that kind of thing. It’s a completely mindless job, but they pay a decent hourly rate and they are accepting of the act that my attention will be largely on the pupuillage hunt – so I really can’t complain. On Wednesday, however, I think I was worse than useless. I simply couldn’t keep my mind on work – using my trusty label-maker was secondary to my covert missions: checking Crimeline for the latest criminal law updates; researching all the members of DreamSet and their practice areas in case they were on the panel; re-reading the BSB Code of Conduct, aware that ethics questions had probably been my downfall in the past. Knowing the size of our national deficit, I’m convinced it would be dramatically reduced if the government stopped employing baby-barristers distracted by pupillage.
     
    I also resorted to some old bad habits I picked up last year – I’ve mentioned before that last year I developed a ‘lucozade and chocolate’ superstition before interviews. I tried to kick that habit this year, but as soon as the interview with DreamSet came up, much like an agnostic facing an apocalypse, I reverted to my old beliefs. When I arrived at DreamSet I was so high on sugar I think I introduced myself 4 times to the same person – luckily another candidate and not someone who could decide my fate.
     
    The interview itself seemed to go alright – it was probably one of the best organised second rounds I’ve been involved with, or heard about, and seemingly certainly one of the fairest as everyone had exactly the same questions and content. As I’ve said before, it’s impossible to predict these things, but suffice to say I would be incredibly surprised if I got on offer on August 2nd – I’m sure that there will have been a couple of people who performed better than me – but we shall see.
     
    This weekend just gone was a weird affair – the first weekend in more than a month where I haven’t had an interview to attend. It felt like the eye of the storm – a false moment of security before the demons of hell rain down upon me once again. I was actually at a bit of a loss – my Saturday routine had developed quite nicely in the last few weeks: do nothing on Friday night, wake up in a panic at 5am on Saturday. Saturday was spent doing almost nothing, couple of films, cooked a vaguely edible dinner – basically anything to keep my mind off pupillage. Sunday was an entirely different affair: I went to the zoo.
     
    I love London Zoo, and have been a member there for about 5 years now. I probably go along 4 or 5 times a year and it’s very much a ‘safe place’ for me – a place where I can just relax. Worries about pupillage, a career, all the usual gubbins, went straight out of the window as soon as I walked through the zoo gates.
     
    I had a sudden moment of realisation, as well. During a talk on ‘ferocious animals’ one of the zoo staff asked the assembled crowd (10 or 15 children, their parents, me) “What’s the world’s most deadly animal for humans?”* One little girl thrust her hand into the air and replied, quietly, but confidently “A volcano!”. It made me realise that, no matter what happens with pupillage, whether I get it this year, next year, or never, there’s so much delight to be found in the world around us – it just took a bold, slightly deranged, slightly confused, little girl to remind me of that.
     
    *The mosquito, apparently. Although I think that answer is cheating.
    
    

• 1st August 2012
  
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    I'm writing this at 8.37 on August the 1st. In 12 hours and 23 minutes the 'offer season' will officially open and thousands of hearts will be broken. Statistically, my poor, poor heart is likely to be one of them.
    
    
    I'm still very much in the game, though. If you look at the 'application progress' page you'll see I managed to secure second round interviews at three Sets: Set 4, Set 9 and Set 16. I'm also still in the game at Set 13, but I won't hear anything from them for weeks. Everywhere else I've been rejected, either before or after interviewing with them.
    
    
    (The A-level Further Mathematician in me just noticed that 4, 9 and 16 are all square numbers. Weird.)
    
    
    12 hours and 9 minutes now.
    
    
    I'm not really sure what I'm counting down to. 9am is the earliest that Sets are meant to get in touch with official offers. However, some Sets might wait a day or two for the dust to settle, others (as we've seen from various online sources) have already let their first choices know. With that in mind, 9am tomorrow actually means very little. Remembering last year, I waited until 5pm to hear anything - and considering the recruitment process is run by Barristers, who have much better things to do, that's not really a surprise.
    
    
    But, despite this rational knowledge, I'm still behaving completely irrationally. Much like the first two weeks of interview notifications, every time my phone makes a noise I'm having a nervous breakdown. In moments of whimsy I allow myself to fantasise about a myriad of 'what if situations'. Sometimes, I allow myself to think "what do I WANT". Other, idiotic times, I start thinking "what do I expect?"
    
    
    So what do I want? A number of times on here I've referred to my 'dream Set' - the place where I've done a mini-pupil, got to know a few members of Chambers, which does my preferred area of work, and their main South-East location (outside of London) is the area in which I grew up. On top of that they have a remarkably decent pupillage award (for Crime) and have a habit of taking on all of their pupils as tenants. In terms of the numbering system, Dream Set is 'Set 4'.
    
    
    Of course, what I really want is a pupillage. Any pupillage. Sets 9 and 16 are great places to undertake pupillage - but Set 4 is, in my opinion at least, something really special.
    
    
    What do I expect? I don't think I'll get anything tomorrow. Considering I had so many first round interviews (10), and only managed to convert 3 of them I've obviously got something wrong in my interview technique. I would love to be able to say that one interview, or another, went brilliantly well, but I can't remember any bwonderful, stand out performances.
    
    
    My prediction would, therefore, be: "not this year"; but I would love, absolutely love, love, love to be proved completely and totally wrong. And I HATE being wrong.
    
    

• 2nd August 2012: It's set 4
  
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    Somehow, and God knows what got me over the line. I just received a phone call from Set 4 - the Dream Set - and I'm shaking with excitement.
    
    
    I really can't bring myself to write much else at the mo - but I'll get blogging again once the dust has settled!
    
    

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