You can contact me at g.e.meikle@googlemail.com if you do feel charitable. I’m sure you would be amply rewarded when you are reincarnated as a football star or a dictator in your next life:)

I was in a similar position last year, and i can entirely identify with your feelings of despondency, frustration, irritation etc.

If you got 7 final round interviews you are almost certainly good enough to get a pupillage at some point – the question is how hard to want to work and improve your chances, and how long you can be bothered to wait. Many other candidates are good too unfortunately – so what can you do between now and OLPAS 2009 to have an edge?

This year I had about 10 interviews from my roughly 18 or 19 applications. 5 of those ended up being essentially final rounds (either second rounds or one-offs). And i got one at a good set.

What have I done in the intervening year that made the difference?
Some pro bono – i have to say not loads and loads, but enough that people asked questions at interviews and i had something to talk about which was moderately interesting.
A bit of mooting – but if you’ve done plenty already then, to be honest, unless you’re into winning international competitions, i wouldn’t worry too much (other than it gets your confidence up).
I arranged a decent gaff for my spare year – 12 months of relevant experience which i am now starting, and which chambers found attractive. The scholarships that Middle Temple do are good – Canada, the European Commission etc. There are decent “legal assistant” jobs out there (i.e. better than paralegalling) that will get you real experience. Look out for them. Or do a Masters – but maybe stick to Oxbridge or the Ivy League if the point of it is merely to build up your CV.
A couple of minis (altho the set i’m going to actually i hadn’t done a mini at before Olpas – altho they invited me for one after i’d applied).

Perhaps most of all (and this is anal and i don’t mind admitting it ) – i drew up a spreadsheet of every question i was asked in interviews (that i could remember), and that others were asked, and prepared a note-form answer that could then be tailored to the particular question on the day. It was a long document. Sometimes relatively easy questions can catch you out if you haven’t prepared – but if you have, you knock them back.
Kept up to date with the latest legal goings on, not just in my area. I’m going into commercial law, but i still got questions on crime. I read articles, and wrote little primer sheets on the big current affairs and legal issues of the few months before OLPAS.

Plan OLPAS like a military campaign – starting now. Identify your weaknesses and reinforce them. Really ram home your strengths.

Anna and the last Anonymous are right – to the vast majority of chambers it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference if you have applied before. Most will not be keeping a record and may not even remember you. In some chambers the panels will change year on year and you therefore have a completely clean slate. Some chambers will even see it as a positive: you are clearly so determined to go there that you have re-applied – just ensure that you are constantly updating your CV so that they can see that you have improved if they do recognise you. While there is a great deal of negativity surrounding the BVC, one thing which it is fantastic for is giving you the time to boost your CV. Make the most of it with mini-pupillages, mooting, debating, FRU, voluntary work and all the rest.

I was fortunate enough to be offered three pupillages the second time around by chambers which had previously rejected me (one without interview, one after the final round and one where I had made the reserve list). In one final round interview they said that they recognised me from the previous year and it did not seem to prejudice my application at all.

As others have said before, most candidates do not get pupillage until the BVC. More frighteningly, most candidates do not get a single interview – you are already doing extremely well if you are getting invited for interviews (small comfort I know). I suggest that you try and do some mock interviews (most of the law schools offer them and if you cannot find a careers centre prepared to give you one, ask a friend with pupillage who you trust to be honest). It seems that this may be where you are tripping up and you might find that you are doing something very minor and easily rectifiable which could make all the difference.

It is terribly disheartening to fail to get beyond reserve lists but I found that I was far more successful the second time around so do not give up hope. The only comfort at the time was something a wise barrister friend said to me: if you have made a reserve list, you have made the grade which that chambers sets for choosing their future pupils. You are good enough to get pupillage so do not be too discouraged and do keep trying.

Also, I second NCunningham’s advice on FRU – it really is second to none as legal experience goes (and her LAG books are well-worth reading if you do decide to try it). It may also be worth having a look at the Inns’ international scholarships for your ‘horrible intervening year’, in particular the Harold G. Fox which sends two candidates to a litigation firm in Toronto for up to 10 months. Just a thought.

Good luck.

You improve your cv, and have something meaty to talk about at interview. You improve your skills – people often say they learned more from one FRU case than from the whole of the BVC. You find out whether you really are cut out for the Bar: there’s nothing like trying it. You learn more from pupillage when you finally get it, because experience gives you some hooks to hang learning on. Your expensive BVC education doesn’t get rusty because you are practising the skills. You get to know others in the same boat – the FRU environment is very friendly and supportive, and a great deal of the best work there is done by people in exactly your position. You get to appear against practising barristers, and you never know – they may be on a pupillage committee. And when you’re first on your feet in court as a pupil or a new tenant, you’ll be through the worst of total-beginner nerves.

And just by the by, you may even get the chance to right some wrongs.

Thank you very much. I have updated the post accordingly. Hope that’s ok with you.

1. If you do get pupillage on the back of being a reserve, don’t get hung up about it. I was a reserve pupil, ended up being the only one taken on as a tenant and have now been at my set of chambers for nearly 6 years. Having now sat on several interview panels at second round, it genuinely is to some degree a matter of luck who places 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. We only pick people as reserves if we would be happy having them as a pupil and I suspect that goes for most other sets too (otherwise, what’s the point?). You might be having a slightly worse day than the person who places 1st, or the problem question might be slightly less to your liking. Who knows? The point is that if you’ve got reserve placings this year, the likelihood is that you’ll get at least reserve placings next year, and that if you do, a first choice will turn the set down (of course, hopefully you’ll end up being someone’s first choice, what with all your additional experience!).

2. We honestly don’t care whether people have applied to us previously. In fact, a couple of years ago, we took on a pupil who had lost out at the second round interview in the previous year’s OLPAS session. He is now a junior tenant. So if you’ve come quite a long way through the process at the Chambers of Your Dreams this year, but didn’t quite make it to pupillage, it is definitely worth checking how they view 2nd applications, as you will know your way round their system much better next year and may therefore perform better.

If you don’t need to work the voluntary sector would be great in order to get experience in court or the Employment Tribunal.

In order to get the full benefit, I would suggest taking on a proper case load. It is great experience and much better than most paralegal work.

27 August 2008 20:27

What I would say is that if this candidate got interviews, their OLPAS application must be up to scratch. So many people seem to get no interviews at all or just one or two. And if they got called back from the first interview, their interview technique can’t be too bad either. Of course, there’s always room for improvement and I would echo Mr. Myerson in saying you should evaluate what you think you did well and where you went wrong – in fact, I was asked at interview what my friends would say my worst qualities were and it was a useful exercise. But you shouldn’t be too despondent. I know from my own experience that, however well people tell you you’ve done, being “the reserve” just doesn’t feel good enough. But it’s so much further than many candidates ever get and it proves you have got what it takes – it’s just unfortunate that someone else did too. At that stage it’s just luck whether you‘re no.1 choice or no.2.

I do disagree with Simon though when it comes to applying to a set for a second time. Of course it’s worth trying to see the situation from chambers’ point of view (consistent decisions etc) but there’s no harm in phoning and asking what the set’s policy on second applications is. If the answer is positive, I think applying again is a worthwhile exercise. I would have done it. I could have brought a lot more to an interview next year than I did this – more mooting experience, more mini-pupillages, the experience of the BVC. Plus, I really felt that my interview and presentation skills improved massively from one interview to the next. In my first interview I didn’t really know what to expect and was pleased just to get through the unseen presentation exercise. But I improved with every interview and I think the standard of the presentation I gave in my last interview helped my cause. In addition, if you got a good feeling about a particular set when you went for interview this year, apply for a mini-pupillage there and apply again through OLPAS – show that you’re keen and your enthusiasm will be noted.

If you reapply to a few places, think laterally for the rest of the form. The set who eventually offered me pupillage were pretty low on my favourites list – I only applied to them to fill up the form when I realised another set wasn’t in OLPAS this year. But when I arrived there for interview I really felt comfortable and found that I had a fair few things in common with members of the interview panel. So when they did offer me a place, I knew it was the right thing for me.

Of course, you could just change your mind and forget the Bar altogether. But if, when you think of yourself in 5 years time, you see yourself as a barrister, and if you can’t think of any other job you’d rather do, then stick with it. It might take you the whole five years to get there, but it will be worth it when you do. You’ve actually done extraordinarily well so far and other people hang on in there, rightly or wrongly, with a lot less.