Mini pupillage - The Students perspective

What is a mini-pupillage?

A mini-pupillage is a period of 3-5 days spent at a set of chambers, which you can be either sent out to court or stay in chambers and be asked to help with any ongoing work. Usually you are assigned to one barrister for the duration of your stay. All my of my mini-pupillages have been with criminal sets and apart from being invited to one chambers drinks party I have never spent more than half an hour there before meeting one of the clerks and being sent off to shadow counsel for a week.

How do I get one? Applying.

Mini-pupillages are sometimes notoriously difficult to get and it can be a bit of a lottery, with chambers usually giving them out on a first come first serve basis. Your first point of call should be to ask yourself which areas of law are you interested in and then find a particular chambers that matches your interests.

To begin with, find the profiles of the top specialist sets in a particular area of law and then go onto chambers websites, usually under the recruitment or pupillage pages, and see if they offer mini-pupillages.

The application stage is quite straight forward, either an online form or emailing your CV and a covering letter. It is extremely important that you rigorously check your covering letting and CV for any mistakes, if there are any mistakes and the likelihood is it will go in the bin. If you are sending your CV and covering letter, make sure they are on good quality paper. 

Always write to Sir or Madam and if you do not know who you are writing to then you should sign off 'Yours faithfully'. It is a formality but as an aspirant barrister you will have to get used to writing many letters to different people, so start using the correct form now. 

It takes very little research to discover who you should address the correspondence to and could cause much consternation if the letter is simply addressed 'Dear Sir' as it shows a lack of effort and care.

In order to get a mini-pupillage you will need good grades and extras such as mooting and debating, if you have not got these then it will be difficult, there may be hundreds of other applicants that are applying for the same mini that will have them.

Networking

Perhaps the most useful way of obtaining a mini-pupillage is to attend lots of networking events, normally organised by your university’s Careers Office or by the your university’s Law/Bar Society. Barristers who are invited to such events are taking time out of their work to come and visit you, they will expect to be asked questions, and will be looking for interesting people.  Preparation is useful here as if you know in advance who is attending you can research what type of law they practice, and any recent cases they have been involved in.

My first ever mini-pupillage was a result of such networking. I had a continuing interest in Criminal Law and had kept up to date with recent events due to pupillage and asked quite a few questions. After the talk I approached a QC and spoke to him about my interests, he then said I should forward him my CV. Of course this will not always be possible if there is a high student to barrister ratio, but it proves that if you show interest and enthusiasm people will spot this.

The lottery

Unfortunately even if you are interesting and have good grades, mini-pupillages can still be a bit of a lottery.  Apply early, around the September period, and apply to a lot of sets.  Chambers are busy and do consider you on a first come first serve basis. Top sets are very popular and so their places go quicker.

Author of LostLondonLawStudent Blog

23-09-2009