Rejection
When I told a friend of mine that I was writing a blog post about rejection, his response was “You might want to narrow down the context or it will turn into a thesis”. We are no longer friends.
It’s pupillage application season which means nervously checking every notification on your phone because it might be a response from chambers. An invitation to interview brings elation. A rejection, the opposite. I know because I have lived the experience. I applied for pupillage in the first year of it being an online portal. (Side note: Prior to that, you submitted your answers on a DOS based system via a 3.5” floppy disc to the Bar Council. If you don’t know what any of those words mean, congratulations on being young).
My record reads:
Pupillage application seasons: 2
Applications: Many
First round interviews: 3 (Year 1: The tissue interview and the champagne glass interview. Year 2: The one that clearly went okay)
Second round interviews: 1 (Year 2: Arrived late because I had been to a lock in the night before)
Offers: 1
Rejections: Many minus1
My harshest rejection was this one
I never opened the file. Anyway, let’s move on.
Standard disclaimer
What you are about to read is very much my opinion/half-baked ideas. I was at the criminal bar, I was on a pupillage committee and then I spent nine years in education reading pupillage application forms and giving students advice on how to approach interviews. I’m still doing the same albeit for a smaller number of people. My views are shaped by my experience. I add this because there is lots of advice out there, much of it better than mine.
I now read applications forms and conduct interviews in a very different world but much of the same applies.
When you hear the views of others, the context surrounding it helps you understand it. I’m happy to put mine front and centre.
Applications received by chambers
Regardless of how many applications a set receives, I think they can be broken down as follows
Yes, I write in purple ink. What of it?
The total number of applications may differ and so will the number of people in each category but it breaks down as follows:
Best thing since sliced bread. Possibly better: You know who I mean. The people with flawless academic records, more prizes than a US gameshow and more experience than the team who have to have to draft press releases after a government u-turn. Such people glide through life on their brilliance. Good on them but can they make fried chicken like me? They can? Oh good. Good for them. I’m. Not. Bitter. Seriously though, these people get interviews and lots of them. They look irresistible on paper.
This bread would slice easily: Not quite the Superhumans above but close. People in this category get lots interviews because their application form stands out, usually due to one or two interesting nuggets that separate them from the next category.
My goodness, these loaves look similar: This is most people. A good degree, an interesting mix of experience, maybe some prizes and scholarships. Thing is, it’s the majority of applicants. I recall an evening reading pupillage applications where I was baffled at how long the one I was reading, was. Turns out that I had read three applications without realising, the answers eliding into one big application. I went back and read them all over again.
This is not bread: Even if nobody in the first three categories applied, these people aren’t getting an interview at the set considering them.
Great, so which one am I?
It depends. Now don’t get cross with me that you’ve suffered so far and I can’t give you a definitive answer but really, it depends. Why? Well there are two important factors:
Applicant A might be the best thing since sliced bread to Chambers X but one of many similar loaves to Chambers Y. Some research into chambers might help you with that but until more sets are up front about their mark schemes, there’s a certain amount of guestimation involved. (My regular Chapeau for 5 Essex Court who publish more useful information to applicants including a fabulous post-application review, than any other set I know).
The way you have drafted your application may well bring you down a category or even two. As a lecturer I read forms from people who were eminently interviewable but who had drafted a form that would likely get rejected.
Make them want to meet you
An application form is a piece of written advocacy. Trite, but important because it’s not the same as writing an essay, a news article or a blog post. It’s an exercise in making people want to interview you. The people reading your form are experienced advocates in both oral and written advocacy. They know what they are looking for. There is no dearth of help out there in getting someone with experience to read your form and tell you if you are pitching it right, really showing off your skills and ultimately making people want to interview you. Note, I also believe that members of chambers are pretty good at working out if it’s your own work. A form written by someone else will stand out, negatively. A form that is the product of guidance but is your own work is not only perfectly acceptable but should be the norm.
I’m not getting interviews or many interviews
There’s two possible reasons:
The content of your form / are you applying to the right sets?
The way in which your form comes across
Again, this is where it’s important to seek the advice of those in the profession who give up their time to help applicants. In terms of content, it’s important to remember that no matter how clear or opaque chambers are with their recruitment policy, they do give some hints at least as to who they will consider for pupillage. There are great swathes of chambers who would have binned my application on sight. I wouldn’t have had the credentials to meet their minimum standards. Leaving aside my plea for chambers to be more up front about how they score forms - Will a 1st always trump a 2:1 with an LLM? Are the number of marks for a 1st compared to a 2:1 such that unless your life experience is exceptional, you’ll always miss out - what’s attractive to one set may not be to others. Not just in terms of academic achievement I should add, but also in terms of experience.
The way in which your form comes across is hugely important. Are you underplaying or overplaying reality. I still recall fondly the student who mentioned in passing an interest in rowing but forgot to mention their Commonwealth Games Bronze Medal. I would have responded with a facepalm emoji but they were yet to be invented. Aside from failing to mention when questioned, something you later rely on in evidence, there’s the questions of tone, structure and wording. There isn’t a magic formula. The bar isn’t looking for a secret recipe in your application form beyond it has to be persuasive. Persuasive enough to make you someone they want to interview.
I get first round interviews but not second round interviews
Well, it’s either
You, or
Them
Captain Trite strikes again. First round interviews are usually short and give chambers a chance to see if you are as good as your form, better or perhaps worse. What they are looking for depends on the set and the type of work that they do. In areas of the bar where there is a lot of oral advocacy they will likely value how you come across and therefore would to potential clients (of both flavours) and to a court. You might have an off day, your competition may just be better than you or you might not be what they are looking for. Given that frank feedback is thin on the ground, it’s hard to know. It’s easy to jump to conclusions but hard to know if you are right.
If you think you might need some practice in being interviewed, seek some from members of the bar.
If you don’t think you need any practice in being interviewed then DEFINITELY seek some practice from members of the bar. I used to conflate speaking with being interviewed. They are different skills. In much the same way as advocacy is similar to public speaking, debating or ranting at your mates down the pub, but not the same thing. (Pubs. Remember them?). You’re being interviewed by people skilled in asking questions and listening to answers. Even if you’ve interviewed well in other arenas, get some help because when a razor-sharp QC grills you, they won’t be impressed with flannel or blagging.
I get second round interviews but not an offer
Let me start by saying that looking across pupillage interviews, my time in education and what I do now, the decision to make an offer between second round candidates comes down to the narrowest of margins. Wafer thin. I can count on one hand the number of people who have made it to a second round interview with me where I didn’t think they could do the job. I’m afraid this is the one where I have nothing other than to say you appear to be getting everything right so keep going for as long as you feel you can or should. A bit of assistance to keep you focused on having a great form and clearly decent interview performance wouldn’t hurt but you are almost certainly losing out because of factors outside of your control.
My friends have the same sort of profile and abilities as me, but seem to do better. Why?
In my head I’m funny and I have a great beard. Your views may differ. We aren’t always great at judging ourselves either because we are too harsh or too soft on ourselves. Are they really similar? Perhaps they are and the luck, because there is an element of luck in all of this, isn’t breaking for you.
There are other factors in play too. Are you applying to the same sets? If they are consistently getting one or two steps further than you then either you aren’t as similar as you think or they have a better form and/or interview technique.
I don’t have an inns scholarship, does that make a difference?
There are capable/incapable* people with/without* scholarships with/without* pupillage
*delete as applicable
Turns out there are also people who decide to try and set out all of the alternatives to the above sentence but it’s too much for a Friday evening.
Scholarships are not definitive but they are attractive on a form. If for no other reason than they demonstrate that another panel of barristers thought you worth investing in. People don’t have scholarships for all manner of reasons and they don’t prevent you getting pupillage or having a successful career, but they do help.
I’ve got a 2:2. Some say that’s fatal. Others tell me keep going. Who is right?
If you’ve got this far and can’t guess the answer…
I’ve got a 2:2. I have one because I was a charming mix of lazy and not very good at my degree and not because of some great conspiracy or because I missed out by a number to two decimal places that I can quote on demand.
I got pupillage through huge amounts of luck and that was back in 2002. I was one of four people to get pupillage in a cohort of 650 with a 2:2
What can I tell you about having a 2:2 that will help you? Next to nothing save this. It will reduce your prospects of success. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible to get pupillage but it’s a lot harder. Scroll back to the top to see my record.
Photo by Jakayla Toney on Unsplash