So firstly, everyone who got pupillage this year, congratulations! I know you deserve it and well done! This in no way diminishes or is a criticism of your incredible accomplishment.

Those who know me, know that I actually always wanted to pursue a career in public law. I was the top of my class, enjoyed the subject and had a natural aptitude for it. However, early in my budding legal career I was told there was no way I was getting pupillage! No way without A- levels, a lower second in Photography (from 10 years ago) and no way would the distinctions on the GDL change that.

I have spoken extensively and blogged about the myriad of reasons in my childhood and life that unfortunately led to no A levels and poor academic achievements. To those new to the blog it includes an abusive household, disability and not being a UK citizen.

Criminal law was another area of interest and many suggested it would be easier to get into. I still nonetheless didn’t get very far with chambers but I was lucky enough that the civil service blind recruits and as a result landed pupillage with the CPS. It was nonetheless my second love to public.

But last year someone suggested, that academics are not the thing they once were for pupillage recruitment. So I conducted a little experiment. This last round I applied for public law pupillages. In every application, I made clear that I was in fact a practicing barrister with real life advocacy experience and had to humiliatingly lay bare my extenuating circumstances.  Here’s what happened….

First an application to Blackstone Chambers

Blackstone provide an assessed mini- pupillage which you must complete in order to be considered for pupillage. The application was done via an online form. I made the fact that I was a junior barrister clear and detailed my one year’s worth of daily court room experience. Other than outlining my troubled past, I also had to fill out a RARE form. To those who might not already know, RARE is a contextual recruitment system, which attempts to put your academics within the context of your particular circumstances. The RARE form I filled in was so geared to someone born, raised and educated in the UK that I ended up answering n/a on most of the options. Pages were dedicated to yearly university breakdown, which my art degree simply didn’t have.

Blackstone’s rejected me without an interview. I asked for further feedback and this is what I received:

“We are looking for candidates of exceptionally high academic ability.  We generally require as a minimum that candidates have either obtained a first-class undergraduate degree or have obtained a 2:1 and a distinction (or equivalent) at post graduate level. Your application form does not contain evidence of academic achievement at this level. Your application was considered to merit an additional mark as a result of the information you provided through the Rare Contextual Recruitment System. However, this was insufficient to bring your application up to the necessary threshold for further consideration.”

This was an application for a mini-pupillage.

Next up the gateway opens.

Cornerstone Chambers

This time an application for pupillage, same disclosures as above but I do not recall using RARE.

One of the early rejections without interview. However, when I asked for feedback, much to my surprise, as they had originally said they do not usually provide feedback at this stage, they responded with a nice email. Personally, I found the feedback kind and encouraging and it didn’t sting as much. This is what they said:

“Thank you for your request for feedback. We had a particularly strong field of applications this year.  We received over 160 applicants but we were only able to invite the top scoring 25 candidates through to the first interview round. Although you performed well in several areas when assessed against our criteria the overall mark was not quite high enough to place you in the top 25. We regrettably have to draw the line at some point as we are not able to interview everyone. This inevitably means – given the high quality of applicants we are fortunate enough to attract – that some good candidates do not reach the interview stage. Accordingly we would not wish applicants such as you to think your performance was a bad one. We wish you the very best for future success.”

A Non-gateway application next with Matrix.

Matrix and I spoke extensively prior to the application to assess whether they would consider me for the guaranteed interview scheme on account of my ASD and SpLD. Given I did not meet the minimum criteria of a 2:1 and a disability (this despite numerous studies and data showing candidates with disabilities are more likely to achieve 2:2s at university), I contacted chambers to understand if my life would constitute as “exceptional circumstances”. Again, therefore having to lay out in spectacular technicolour, the graphic details of my life.

I was advised to put the application in and write down what I had already mentioned. Usual disclosures re my practice etc.

Rejected also without an interview. Matrix did however provide feedback in the form of their score card. In order to secure an interview, I needed to score 22.95.

Out of the total available, 8 marks were up for grabs in academics alone, the maximum out of any category. Thus also the area I lost the most amount of marks. In stark contrast the maximum for extenuating circumstances were a grand total of 2.

The rest of my answers all scored between 2-3 out 4. I got the usual “at this stage we cannot provide further information” email so I have no further idea as to what led to the scores in other areas. But what I could see is that there was a range of marking. Matrix had 2 independent sifters and strangely nearly each category had a discrepancy between markers. The highest score I achieved was 21.50, just falling short of the 22.95 mark.

Followed by 4-5 Gray’s Inn, another non gateway set

I have to say I was the most optimistic about 4-5 given they actually interviewed me for a third six. Unless I misunderstood (very possible!) I was not the right candidate on the basis that I wanted a general public practice when they wanted an exclusively housing practitioner. Nonetheless a rejection came, without an interview and my request for feedback was denied but they did reply back to tell me that.

Next up 39 Essex

Rejected also without an interview. Asked for feedback and although received a response, got told no feedback would be provided.

Garden Court

Kudos to GCC for stepping up their game. Including the three years prior to getting pupillage, this was the first time GCC sent me an email to reject me. I did however ask for feedback/score card and received no answer.

36 Public

36 also rejected me without an interview. Much like GCC I asked for feedback but got no response back.

And lastly we have everyone’s favourite woke chambers, Doughty Street

Rejected by silence.

I’m sure many will read this blog post and think here she goes again trashing the hand that feeds her. Others might think what’s the problem?

Well the reality is if a practising barrister with over one year of daily courtroom advocacy and drafting experience can’t get an interview let alone a pupillage, then who exactly are we recruiting? Do we as a profession really have an understanding of diversity and disadvantage? Do we have a real understanding, not one that simply asks you to tick the box about free school meals? And what room do we really make for those candidates? Does our priority of academia, in a country where schools and universities are so closely associated to class, say more than it should about us?

What strikes me the most about the academics issue, is that for the years that I had abuse in my life, no stability and poverty, my grades reflected that. But when I found stability, when I managed to escape my family and my country, my grades also changed. I was getting distinctions but these sadly seemed to have very little value in the recruitment process compared to that given to my A levels and an undergrad in Photography! Ultimately it feels like I was written off years ago, in which case what was the point in the GDL, the distinctions? What was the point in trying? That is the truly heartbreaking bit.

Even though I am a qualified barrister, by virtue of my deemed “inferiority” of birth, I will always be an outsider to the upper echelons of both the Bar and British society. Nonetheless what this little experiment has shown me is that even now, after one year of being “on the other side”, as a sort of “insider”, I am still nowhere near understanding what exactly it takes to get pupillage, especially in public/commercial sets. While I cannot hop in a time machine and change my past and education, I am still perplexed as to what I could have done to excel in the other categories of answers. If you don’t have access to this profession, to an insider, to recruiters and then are also denied feedback, how do candidates understand what they need to do? And ultimately is it fair for us to exclude people who had no control over their circumstances in the first place?

Perhaps some readers may think it’s a bit presumptuous to think that a criminal practitioner could easily make the jump to another area of law. But this was precisely why I applied to retrain, not transfer my practice.

I took my findings to the Bar Council Education and Training Committee. I was told my concerns would be raised and I would receive a response. Sadly much like above, a response never came.