There is widespread shock among Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) students today after the Pupillage Portal website kept working in the run up to this morning’s 11am deadline for pupillage applications.
For the first time in its three year history, Pupillage Portal, which is rumoured to have been designed by Lord Neuberger during an hour-long introduction to the internet class, neither crashed under the weight of last-minute submissions nor malfunctioned and lost students’ work.
Both the Pupillage Rejection Thread and the #BPTC Twitter hashtag were eerily quiet as the deadline passed – a stark contrast to previous years, when rage-fuelled Bar students gathered on these and other forums to hurl abuse at those behind the journey back in time that is Pupillage Portal.
Comfortingly, a couple of errors were made as a nod to tradition. 9 – 12 Bell Yard was mistakenly advertised as recruiting for pupillages in 2012 rather than 2013, while the advert for Newcastle’s Trinity Chambers was so confusing that a notice had to be placed about it on the Pupillage Portal front page.