Red faces at London criminal and housing set, as Garden Court cocks up email and widely discloses names of wannabe barristers set for interviews
It’s a stressful time for aspiring barristers as they enter the business-end of the pupillage season. So an email gaff revealing the names of all 85 people you’re up against at interview stage is probably not going to help.
But that is exactly what has happened to those vying for one of six pupillages up for grabs at Lincoln’s Inn, multi-disciplinary set Garden Court Chambers.
A post appearing yesterday on chatroom website The Student Room revealed that all candidates with an interview offer were copied into the same email.
User ‘LawBlaBla’ — having received an interview offer — counted around 85 candidate names, some of whom LawBlaBla recognised.
Poster ‘Irisanna’ lashed out at the chambers, taking to the pupillage-thread to say:
I have to say this did not endear me to GC. It smacks of total incompetence.
A spokesperson for Garden Court told Legal Cheek:
We would like to apologise unreservedly to the candidates affected by this. We have contacted them all to apologise directly and to let them know that they can discuss this further with chambers. We take this matter seriously and acknowledge the concerns that may have been caused by the visibility of email addresses. We have taken immediate steps to further tighten our procedures.