To even get to the pupillage interview stage is a massive achievement, no matter how many cycles you have been through, so certainly pack yourself on the back for that. Now that you have the interview(s) coming up, you might be wondering: how do I prepare? I was in exactly the same position last year prior to 6 first round interviews having never had a pupillage interview before. Luckily, I had some great advice given to me from family members, trusted colleagues and the employability department at the University of Law – not to mention my own intuition, now that’s scary! In this post, I hope to share some of the valuable knowledge I was given, along with my own advice, to help you put your best foot forward and know what to expect.

Why should you listen to me? Something I did last year must have worked as I managed to convert all of my six first round interviews (‘FRIs’) into second round interviews (‘SRIs’), and 3 of those SRIs into offers.

1. Prepare for the known

There are questions which come up again and again in pupillage interviews and you are shooting yourself in the foot if you try to come up with an answer on the spot. For example:

Why do you want to become a barrister?

Why do you want a [insert area of law] pupillage?

Why our Chambers?

Why do you want a pupillage at a regional set? [if applicable]

The first thing you should do is make a word document or a physical list and bullet point all of the points you would make if you were responding to a written question. For example:

Why do you want a pupillage at our Chambers?

• Array of practice areas which I am interested;
• Three different pupillage supervisors in different areas;
• Strong interest in crime – can illustrate through work experience, studies and mini-pupillages;
• Interest in civil work – Court of Protection paralegal & family’s own legal struggle;
• Volunteer @ Advocate – shows I enjoy variety in my work.

Then set up a webcam and start recording yourself answering the question with reference to your bullet points only. I would not get used to using a script: it can sound robotic and it is good not to be so rigid in an interview scenario. Make 3-4 recordings of yourself answering the questions in each practice session. Then, really importantly, review the video (this is the part I never liked). When you are reviewing the video, really self-analyse. Do I sound genuine? Am I projecting as if I were in a court? Am I using filler words – mine was always ‘and’ at the start of my sentences!

Continue practicing and fleshing out your bullet points to the camera and eventually you’ll be so refined that when you inevitably get the question, you won’t be caught off guard. You’ll also have the confidence that you know how to answer this kind of question. The best part is, your rehearsed bits can be cut and pasted to random unseen questions… Just practice, practice, practice the basics.

Bonus tip – use your resources to REALLY be in the known.

If you have an employability department at your bar course provider, please, please use them. Often, they have such a large pool of resources from previous students which can really help. This is especially true in terms of interview questions: they often have a bank of questions which previous pupillage hopefuls were asked by Chambers. The same principle applies if you happen to know people who were interviewed by a set in the previous year or so.

If you should be fortunate enough to have this information, prepare in the same way above. Be ready for what you know is coming: don’t expect to become a KC on the spot! You will be nervous so the least you can do is be drilled.

2. Current Awareness

In 90% of my 12 interviews (6 FRIs and 6SRIs), I was asked for my opinion on some kind of ‘in the news’ issue which could be relevant to law or legal policy in any way. For this, it is so important that you have your head out of the sand and know what is going on. My recommendation would be two-fold:

1. Make sure you check the news frequently (everyday if possible) and make some physical notes of stories which have a legal angle to consider. I would always use BBC News as it is fairly central but multiple news sources would be ideal. Last cycle, the big one was the Post Office Horizon scandal. Write down the facts, as well as your opinions on the matter. If it is a for/against issue, write down some arguments for both. I say write it down as this will help you remember it all when under scrutiny by a pupillage panel!
2. Subscribe to the Inner Temple Daily Awareness daily newsletter. This resource is just fantastic, whoever compiles it at Inner Temple deserves an award. I would check this everyday and read any article or judgment which was relevant to my interviewing areas. This helps to fill in the gaps of the specific areas of law which the general news might miss, e.g., family, commercial, crime, etc.

Definitely do not overlook the importance of staying up to date with the area of law you actually want to practice. You want to be a commercial/criminal/family barrister so badly? Make sure you can show it through your awareness of the topical issues.

3. Debate questions

These came up in every SRI I had last year and they were my most hated questions. They can be on almost any topic under the sun and in a few interviews, I was not given any time to prepare for them, it was a ‘spot test’. Some examples of the ones I had were:

Argue for or against: people caught with a knife in a public place should be sentenced to immediate custody no exceptions.

People who are clinically obese should be required to pay for medical treatment.

Those born after 1990 have had it easier than those born after 1950.

Whether you have time to prepare or not, the structure of your response should still be the same. Remember that you are interviewing to be trained as a barrister, not a debater. I would structure your response like a submission, making all your points clear and logical as opposed to waffle – less is more here. For example:

I am going to make three arguments why people caught with a knife in a public place should be sentenced to immediate custody, my first point is that [], my second point is [] and my third point is []. Turning to my first point… Repeated for the other two points, followed by a succinct summary of your best points.

I think structure and performance is really key. If you can make a novel and interesting argument all the better, but make sure you do it in a way a barrister would.

NOTE: It is very common for Chambers to play the ‘uno reverse’ on you after you are finished and ask you to argue for the opposite side. Be aware and try to think of counterpoints to your arguments so you are ready for this often nasty surprise.

As with the generic question prep, have a go at a few debate style questions, like the examples I have listed above. If possible, have a buddy, parent, lover, or other kind pupillage supporter generate some and put you under pressure. Practice will make perfect, or at the least, it will make it a bit easier.

If your set is nice enough to let you have a bit of prep time, don’t put it to waste. Draw a really simple table with two sides, for and against. Bullet point everything you can think of for both sides so you have it to refer to. I can’t emphasise enough how helpful it is to have written prompts in a stressful interview where the tendency is for the mind to go blank.

If your set is cruel enough to not give you prep time, use some sneaky strategies to buy yourself time. Ask for the question to be repeated whilst you think about your response. If they have given you paper to take notes on, write the question out in front of you as it will help you remember and think carefully about what it actually says. Take a sip of water and a deep breath. You are in no rush. Don’t open your mouth until your brain actually knows what it is going to say.

4. Delivery & presentation is as important as your content

There were certainly more than a few FRIs where I was convinced that I had bombed out because of what I had actually said. But then SRI emails came through… Going over them in mind the only thing that I could think of was, I came across well, which is something I worked really hard on. The pointers I would give here are:

• You’re not nervous, you’re excited. It sounds like something you tell a child with stage fright but hilariously, it actually worked for me. Anxiety and excitement, at least in my limited neurological knowledge, have similar nerve pathways so the two can often get mixed up. In the build up to the interview, tell yourself that you are excited to shine for the panel and show them what you are capable of and how hard you have worked for it (a bit of self-love never hurt anyone).
• Before you go to interview, do some breathing exercises and warm up your voice. Once again, sounds ridiculous. However, I did this religiously. I would either do this in the waiting room if it was empty or, more frequently, I would pop to the toilet and do them in there. Take some time on your own, take in big deep breathes and then close your lips together and hum at different pitches (start low and then go higher) to warm up/loosen your vocal cords. The same way a sprinter does dynamic stretching before running, is the same thing you are doing for your voice as a barrister.
• Your first sentence sets your confidence, really project that first sentence. This is always my ‘hack’ as a natural introvert. If you can be brave enough to really project your first sentence, you will feel your airway relax and nerves channelled toward performance.
• Look the part. This is such an easy way to get a win before you even go into the interview. In the week before, get a haircut, make sure your clothes still fit in a way which makes you feel confident and allow enough time to get ready on the day. Whatever makes you feel like your best self, get in done and be ready on interview day. It gives you such a big confidence boost when you are feeling yourself and sets a good first impression with the panel.

5. Competency-based questions

I also wrote about this in my Inn of Court scholarship post but the same principle applies here. It is very likely you will get asked a competency-based question. These questions look a bit like this (note: these are all actual questions I was asked in interview last year):

Please tell us about an occasion where you showed attention to detail.

Please tell us about an occasion where you showed resilience.

Please tell us about an occasion where you dealt with a difficult person, what did you do and how did it go?

Please describe a time you used advocacy to good effect?

Do the ‘islands of awesomeness’ exercise (ULAW people who know of the legendary Anna Williams will know). Put a circle in the middle of a page, like a mind map and write a competency of a barrister in the circle, e.g., attention to detail, resilience, dealing with difficult people, persuasiveness, public speaking, etc. Then, draw arrows out of the circle with all the different things you have done in your professional life, personal life or studies which demonstrate that competency. Try to be as specific as possible, e.g., I dealt with X client (anonymised) who suffered from PTSD and I had to deal with him in this way and learnt X, rather than, I worked at a criminal law firm and am therefore good at dealing with difficult people.

Definitely do this exercise the old-fashioned way (pen & paper). Primary school stuff but it helps it to sink into your brain and makes it easier for you to recall information under the stress of a pupillage interview.

6. Be ready for ethics-based questions

This really, really tripped me up in one interview in particular. The reason being, these ethics questions are not in the same league as the multiple choice professional ethics exam that BSB students sit. I was asked:

You spot your client covertly recording court proceedings on their phone. The hearing is public. What should you do?

The same as above, but the hearing is private. Does your answer change?

You spot opposing counsel using ChatGPT to summarise a document. What should you do?

My advice would be to read some of the Bar Council’s Ethics & Practice guide. The use of ChatGPT and other AI LLM’s is a hot topic, so I would be particularly aware of this. As with the professional ethics exam, make sure you know what your core duties are but more importantly, make sure you know how they interact with eachother in a real-life situation.

When you are answering an ethics-based question, I would speak your ‘working out’ aloud. For example: CD3 (honesty & integrity) would be engaged but because of CD6 (confidentiality) I first need to do X.

7. Do your research

There is nothing more embarrassing than going to interview at a set who advertises ’employment law’ on their website but when you turn up, they have a sole barrister who has been before the first-tier employment tribunal once, and lost that case.

Ridiculous example but I would always look at the three most junior tenants’ profiles and read about their background and the kind of work they are doing at chambers. I did the same for the three most senior tenants and I found that gave me a much better idea of the kind of work chambers undertook as opposed to looking at the header of their website.

Alongside the above, it goes without saying but read a few of the big cases they have recently been involved in. You never know but a member of the interviewing panel may well have been counsel in that case and it will show a real interest in that particular chambers if you can successfully reference it. TIP: Don’t reference any of chambers’ cases unless you have properly read it and understand the legal principles. The advocate who handled that case may be in the room and if you don’t know it, you could be in for a very sad line of questioning…

Final Thoughts

If there is anyway to sum pupillage interviews, it is 27th April 2024: I woke up in Birmingham at 6am and then went to my SRI there at 9am. Finished at 10am. Dashed back to my hotel to make another SRI via zoom in my hotel room at 10:30am. Finished at 11:15am. Checked out and threw all my stuff in the car. Drove to Cambridge for another SRI at 2pm. Finished my day at 3pm, having done three interviews… absolutely finished.

Pupillage interview season is a tough slog. Particularly for those undertaking the Bar course and/or working at the same time. Stay strong and don’t let the panels get to you. It truly is an achievement in itself to have gotten a pupillage interview.