15.04.2023 prepping between pupillage interviews ⚖️

Day 11/50 productivity

24/9/21

Great gym session today

The Ethics and Professional Standards course is one of the Sphinx-like hurdle of your pupillage-journey to being called to the Malaysian Bar. Sphinx-like, in that it will (sometimes) ask you questions whose answer aren’t exactly ‘predictable’. 

To survive it, here are some tips:

Before the Course

You have to enrol yourself on the course. Once you’ve served your Borang 1 and 2 to the Bar Council, they’ll send a letter to your firm informing you of the Ethics course and exam, giving you a date you’re tentatively enrolled in, with a deadline by which you have to return the letter to confirm your attendance at the course. 

Go to the Bar Council before the deadline with your letter, fill in the relevant forms, and sign up for the Ethics Course and E-learning programme.

Bring RM200 with you - RM150 for the course, RM50 for the e-learning programme. 

Get the Ethics Handbook.

(You can revise the Ethics Handbook before the course as recommended, but I don’t find it necessary.)

During the Course

DO NOT BE LATE. Not even a minute - I’ve been barred from entering when I came running in at 8:33am instead of 8:30, and have to re-attend the first half-hour of the course the next month. It might be difficult if you hail from far-flung places like Klang (me), but stay at a relatives’/friends’ place that’s nearer if you want to avoid having to come again at 8:30 the next month.

Ladies: Wear pants. Puan Hendon (the Professor McGonnagal of the Ethics Course) would give you a little telling-off if your skirt is too short. Pants, as long as they’re not really, really tight, would help you avoid that.

You’re sitting down listening to lectures for the whole day, so something comfortable would be nice. For me, I brought in a comfy scarf to huddle in during the lectures. 

Keep the nametag they give you upon sign-in, and don’t lose it - you’ll need it for the exam the next time. Better yet, clip it to the front cover of the Ethics handbook so you’ll remember it. 

After the Course - Revising for the Exam

You can take the exam the day after (so the material is fresher in your mind), or if you’d rather have time to revise, you can schedule to take the exams the next month, which is what most people do these days.

Revise the Ethics manual, obviously. Get to know it inside out, where everything is. 

Get sample test questions and answers from your friends - ask around! If you really can’t find anyone, send a ‘ask me anything’ on this page, and I’ll try to forward you something. Alternatively, you could go on the e-learning portal set up by the Bar Council that we all have to pay for now and do the examples there. 

Practice answering those questions! The Ethics exam questions are quite often repetitive, and with practice, you get to have a try at figuring out and answering the questions before having to actually do the exam. 

Prep (revising the manual + doing practice questions) should take you about 2 nights. You can revise the weekend before, or two nights before. Personally, I’d revise each chapter and attempt the practice questions, before moving on to the next chapter. Different folks different strokes, of course. 

The Exam

As mentioned above, bring your nametag. 

Bring in tabs to tab relevant pages as you flip through them, so you can quickly flip to the relevant pages as you write your answer.

Bring a good, smooth pen to write with. Or better yet, bring a few. You’d need to write quickly - most people complain about the how much they have to write and how little time there is. 

05.05.2023 - i don't want one anymore... because i got one!!

Met up with my former chambering pupil. He's doing well now and has his own firm.

 Why become a barrister?

Although lines between the professions have somewhat collapsed with the advent of public access (for barristers) and higher court rights (for solicitors), barristers do tend to focus more on advocacy and/or the point of conflict/serious (potential) problems. There tends to be less client-facing work (e.g. taking witness statements, providing general legal advice) and more legal research.

One of the major differences between barristers and other lawyers is that, from the outset, most barristers are self-employed. This is a very different experience to work in a firm as ultimately you are responsible for running your own business.

I’ve previously said that working as a barrister is kind of like being a student except you write an essay/take an oral exam nearly every day instead of once a week/year and somebody's life/home/family depends upon it! It can be very stressful but feeling useful and effective is also very rewarding.

Which chambers?

There are some sets who specialise heavily in publicly funded work but it’s not always easy to tell which those are - a chambers may look like a ‘human rights’ chambers but in fact works mostly for the government, against individuals. Look at the reported cases on chambers websites to see who their barristers are normally representing. Also check Chambers & Partners and the Legal 500 to see who is ranked and for what kind of work (although bear in mind these suffer from almost the same level as self-reporting as chambers’ own websites). Also if there is a particular line of cases you have been following/interested in, try to see who is acting in them.

Remember to look outside your city, especially if you live in London. Opportunities in other cities can be really good, especially as many chambers outside London aim to take on any pupils that are up to standard (as opposed to some London chambers who do not have as many tenancy places as pupils). With a lower cost of living and less competition, it can also be easier to establish your practice.

Many chambers will do legal aid work in criminal and family law but for other areas it might be harder to identify key sets. Some areas are so specialist (e.g. social security) there maybe only one or two barristers in an entire chambers with a significant amount of work in that area. Other major areas include:

Immigration and asylum:

London: 1 Mitre Court Buildings, 10 KBW, Doughty Street Chambers, Garden Court Chambers, Goldsmith Chambers, Lamb Building, Landmark Chambers, Matrix Chambers, One Pump Court

Birmingham: No 5 Chambers, No 8 Chambers

Leeds: KBW Barristers Chambers

Manchester: Garden Court North Chambers, Kenworthys Chambers

Newcastle: Trinity Chambers

Housing:

London: Arden Chambers, Doughty Street Chambers, Garden Court Chambers, Landmark Chambers, One Pump Court

Manchester: Garden Court North Chambers

Birmingham: St Ives Chambers

Scholarships (for the GDL/BPTC)

Each Inns of Court has a scholarship scheme, but they vary slightly in the way they are administered. For example, Inner Temple interviews everyone that applies and modifies the amount awarded by your financial needs. Lincoln’s Inn has set awards, and probably the largest financial pot.

Academics

There is no doubt that having higher grades will be (often literally) a point in your favour, as will having further academic qualifications e.g. a masters. Do not underestimate the usefulness of having worked hard at this stage - push yourself to get the best result possible and make good use of your tutors who can guide you to achieve your full potential. 

Remember there is space on the pupillage application to explain any out of character lower marks (e.g. a bereavement) and you can also compensate for a 2.1 at undergraduate level (while this is obviously not a bad result, a lot of your competitors will have firsts!) with good results in a masters, GDL or BPTC so do not see the latter two in particular as simply a hoop to jump through.

Mooting/debating

While not all chambers are interested in this, I would strongly advise any prospective barrister to do some mooting or debating. Firstly, mooting in particular can really help you with your academics e.g. by making you think out tricky private law problems or practise the advocacy skills you will need for your BPTC exams. Secondly, achievements in this area are a tangible sign that you have some talent in advocacy. If you are able to put that you won something or even advanced to the final stages, this could be a point in your favour. However, I do not advise listing a number of competitions you’ve participated in if you did not make it past the first round - this will not look good.

For mooting opportunities, check with your Inn, law school and local law society. International opportunities include the Phillip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.

Mini-pupillages

Opinions on this vary but doing more than 3 mini-pupillages, especially if you are pretty confident about which area of law you would like to do, is likely to have diminishing returns as you should have a pretty good idea by then of whether you think this would be a good career for you, which at the end of the day is the mini-pupillage’s real function as few offer much in the way of tangible work experience and even if they do it is only a few days, making a marginal difference to your overall work experience history. In practical terms it can also take up a lot of space on your pupillage application (unfortunately there is not a separate section for this on the standard pupillage portal applications) and distract from more substantive work experience. Think also about what your mini-pupillages reveal about your interests - if you have done 3 mini-pupillages in personal injury/commercial sets and then apply to a human rights chambers, the person reading your application may think you are not really interested in their areas of law.

Work/volunteering experience

Unfortunately, work experience is more and more relevant to applications to human rights and legal aid sets, where applicants are often older and those recently out of university may find it hard to compete. The younger generation are impressively switched on to the need to start getting relevant experience at an early stage and are taking advantage of student opportunities such as law clinics, miscarriage of justice projects and Amnesty International student groups. If your university does not offer this, consider setting up one yourself - and check if there are funds available to support that.

Internships and volunteering are good CV builders but can be difficult to access for those who have caring responsibilities or need to work to fund their studies. Look out for:

Funded/expenses paid internships

Evening/part time opportunities - law centres/university law clinics often offer flexible hours that you could fit around other commitments. 

Bursaries e.g. the Human Rights Lawyers Association, Inns of Court internships, university study/internship scholarships for the academic holidays

Paid roles e.g. legal assistant to a barrister, paralegal in a law firm, county court advocate

Remote volunteering e.g. writing articles for legal oriented websites like the Justice Gap, the Student Lawyer or joining one of YLAL’s sub-groups

Also if you see somewhere asking for 4 days a week for 3 months, go to them and ask if there is any possibility they can be flexible and accommodate your constraints - can you offer them 1 day a week for a year, for example.

One good tip if you are not sure where to look for volunteering opportunities is to check the profiles of junior barristers at chambers that you want to apply for - they will often mention different schemes they have done.

In general, organizations that may offer opportunities include:

Multiple locations: Bar Human Rights Committee, Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), law centres (see Law Centres Network list), university law clinics, Streetlaw, Amicus, Personal Support Unit, Shelter, Independent Custody Visitor, Appropriate Adult, Refugee Action, Magistrates, Independent Parental Special Education Advice, National Centre for Domestic Violence

Leeds/Bradford: Bradford Women’s Aid, Manual Bravo Project, Palm Cove Society, Solace

Liverpool: Vauxhall Community Law and Information Centre

London: Free Representation Unit, Reprieve, Justice, Liberty, Privacy International, Amnesty International, Minority Rights Group International, ATLEU, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), Article 19, Redress, Fair Trials international, Howard League for Penal Reform, Howard League for Penal Reform, The Prisoners’ Advice Service, African Prisons Project, Release

Manchester: Greater Manchester Law Centre, Manchester/Bolton/Rochdale CABs, Urban Lawyers North, ASHA

Newcastle: Families in Care

Sheffield: Ashiana Sheffield, ASSIST Sheffield, City Hearts

Applications

Make sure work experience descriptions are concrete - would anyone reading your application understand what your role entailed? If it’s relevant to the areas of law in which you would like to practise, make sure you explain exactly what work you were doing e.g. drafting applications or witness statements, preparing court bundles and what areas/issues it covered e.g. debt, domestic violence. 

Try to be precise and give specific examples to questions such as ‘What would make you a good barrister.’ Just saying I am good at public speaking is not as effective as pointing out you’ve won 2 mooting competitions.

Remember the application has to be read as a whole, it’s not just a box-filling exercise. Will somebody reading it understand why you want to be a barrister and why that area of law? This is especially important where you do not have much work experience, or all your work experience is in another area.

Get as many people to read your application as you can and do not be defensive about their feedback - just listen and try to take it on board. If you can’t do that at this stage (or, also crucially, during BPTC/pupillage), you will be holding yourself back from professional development and success.

Interviews

While interviews are daunting, there are lots of things you can do to prepare for them:

Read about current affairs related to law and your proposed areas of work. It is surprising how unprepared candidates are for really obvious questions related to the big issues of the previous year. Actually reading the Commission’s report on a UK Bill of Rights will mean you can deliver a much more detailed, impressive answer to a question on that topic, for example. YLAL’s facebook page and twitter account post many news articles and YLAL delivers a monthly summary by email which is also available on the website - it’s not hard to catch up.

Read up on recent cases from the areas of law you are interested in. Blogs like Free Movement, Nearly Legal, Pink Tape, Suesspicious Minds, The Secret Barrister, the UK Criminal Law Blog, the UK Human Rights Blog, Public Law for Everyone and the UK Supreme Court Blog are great resources

Think about ‘classic’ issues such as freedom of speech or religion and read around the major debates and cases in those areas

Be ready for commonly asked questions such as which law would you change (check the Law Commission’s website for examples of issues) 

Take stock of what you have learnt from your academic/work experience so far - jot down some examples of things that stood out and shaped your professional ambitions and understanding

Be prepared to answer questions about how you propose to run a business in the current legal aid landscape - read up on major developments in funding such as the Bach Commission report and the government’s legal aid review and think about what you want your practice to look like and how you could diversity/supplement income streams

Be prepared to answer ethics questions - the BSB Handbook is available free on their website and contains the full Code of Conduct with lots of commentary. If you are a student, even if not on the BPTC, you can probably find the OUP’s Professional Ethics book in your law library.

If you don’t have a question at the end of the interview, that’s fine.

If you have to do an advocacy exercise, some tips are:

Have a clear structure

Prepare a summary of the facts but ask if this is needed - the panel may not want to waste 5 minutes going over facts and prefer to get right to the issues

Really think about what your best argument is, and put that first. Think about what it is the judge needs to know to come to the decision your client wants

Don’t panic if you get interrupted, this an opportunity to show you can really engage rather than just read off a script. Depending on how much prep time you have, try to think about what these questions might be

If you get the exercise the night before, play it out in your mirror so you can check how your submissions flow, whether you are having trouble following your notes etc.

If something in the interview really stumps you, like you do not understand the entire premise of a question, then just ask. However, give yourself a couple of seconds to think first, don’t ask unnecessarily and don’t rush into an answer then realise you’ve misunderstood the question. 

If you are asked to give two sides of an argument, then don’t give some rubbish arguments for one side assuming the left-leaning chambers you are at wouldn’t want to hear that anyway - the point of the question is to test your overall advocacy skills, and anticipating the other side’s arguments is a key barrister skill.

Young Legal Aid Lawyers

This (free-to-join) organization offers support to students and other aspiring legal aid lawyers of all ages (young = junior!) in terms of advice, job posting and mentoring but also offers opportunities to volunteer from organizing events around the country to contributing to research and campaigns. It is particularly useful to join for those not based in London or big cities because it provides remote opportunities to gain work experience.

http://www.younglegalaidlawyers.org/

Other professional organizations

Other organizations you may want to join include:

Bar Human Rights Committee

Criminal Bar Association (BPTC students only)

Discrimination Law Association (£15 for students)

Family Law Bar Association (£15 for students)

Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers (£20 for students)

Housing Law Practitioners Association (free for students)

Human Rights Lawyers Association (free for students)