Beverley Dawes, head of the Bar Practice Course at ULaw, offers her advice on getting work experience, dealing with rejection and acing interviews
Head of the Bar Practice Course of The University of Law, Beverley Dawes began her career as a barrister at Leeds’ KBW Chambers. Having experienced the pupillage application process as an aspiring barrister and as a legal educator, she has some particularly valuable advice to offer pupillage applicants.
Dawes sat down with Legal Cheek Careers to share some of these pearls of wisdom ahead of her appearance at Legal Cheek’s virtual student event ‘Pupillage application masterclass — with Gatehouse, Henderson, Keating, Landmark, Radcliffe Chambers and ULaw’. We discuss how to select the right bar course provider and the support ULaw offers to their students, as well as advice on securing a pupillage and dealing with rejection.
Can you tell me a bit about your role as head of the BPC at ULaw?
My role as head of the BPC at ULaw involves managing the design, delivery, regulation and assessment of the Bar Course across our eight BPC campuses at ULaw. We offer a full-time and part-time BPC at ULaw. My role is varied, including student recruitment, assessment design, course materials design, course structure planning and more. I work closely with our BPC programme director and the BPC programme leads across our campuses to ensure the smooth running of the course.
How should students go about selecting a bar course provider?
There’s a lot for students to consider when choosing their Bar course provider. One should consider where they want to study in the country (i.e in which city), their preferred study mode (part-time or full-time), their preferred course (bar course or combined bar course with LLM) and other factors such as accommodation and travel costs, for example. Students often base their bar course provider choice on geographical location, course structure, available financial support (e.g scholarships and bursaries), course entry requirements and success rates in terms of employability or assessment performance. I would recommend that students attend open days – either physically at a campus or virtually, online — to help them make their decision. Don’t be afraid to ask plenty of questions at an open day; providers will be happy to answer them and give you all the information you need to make an informed decision about the right course and provider for you.
What kind of experiences and opportunities should students be looking out for during their bar studies?
Practical work experience, voluntary work and any opportunities which offer insight into the work of a barrister, are invaluable. Mini-pupillages are popular and offer students the opportunity to see the day-to-day work of barristers. Marshalling a judge offers an interesting perspective from a different aspect in the courtroom, as well as a unique opportunity to learn about the judiciary’s work. Pro bono work, such as legal advice clinics and other advisory work, gives you first-hand experience of representing and advising clients. Mooting, debating, negotiating and other similar activities will help you hone your oral skills. I would also recommend that students attend law fairs, pupillage open days, CV or interview-preparation workshops, guest speaker events, mentoring schemes etc; anything that will give you valuable insight into a career at the Bar. I also recommend undertaking some work experience at a solicitors firm (i.e a vacation scheme), to further understand the work of solicitors.
How does ULaw support students when applying for pupillage?
Students can access our Employability Service from the moment they accept their place onto the course. ULaw offers support to students with writing their CV and pupillage applications and preparing for pupillage interviews. Students can book at 1-2-1 with a member of the Employability team at any time. We arrange and host law fairs, guest speaker events, practical workshops and other events to support students with their pupillage applications. We also offer a wide range of extra-curricular activities — such as mooting, negotiation, pro bono opportunities and more — to help students gain skills and insight which will help them with preparing for applying for pupillage.
Do you have any advice for using non-legal experience within pupillage applications?
Non-legal experience is valuable and offers the opportunity to develop practical skills which are useful for a career at the bar, so don’t be afraid to detail non-legal experience in your pupillage applications. Just make sure you are explaining what you learned from the experience, rather than simply listing what you did. Explain how the experience has prepared you for a career as a barrister; whether that’s time management, dealing with difficult situations, working independently on a project, managing several clients/projects at once, having to make quick decisions or anything else which is transferrable to the bar.
How should students approach commercial awareness in pupillage interviews?
Keep up-to-date with what’s going on in the world. One piece of advice I always give to students is to read the news — and different viewpoints on — current affairs. Social media platforms such as LinkedIn and X can be useful for keeping up to date on interesting legal developments. There are also plenty of digital and hard copy publications — such as “Counsel” — that are also worth reading. Sign up for commercial awareness mailing lists, if your University has one. In pupillage interviews, be prepared to give your opinion on a question or topic, with reasoning. It’s also good to explore alternative opinions from different viewpoints on recent developments, cases and things in the news, so that you can demonstrate this in pupillage interviews too.
Do you have advice for students facing rejection?
Don’t be disheartened by rejection; it is something that most aspiring barristers will experience along their pupillage application journey. The most important thing, in my opinion, is to ask for feedback following a rejection and use that feedback wisely. Carefully digest the feedback and consider how you could improve your application/interview technique for the next round of applications. Rejection should always be taken constructively and used to help strengthen your applications/interview technique.
Finally, what’s one thing that all students applying for pupillage should keep in mind?
The pupillage application process is likely to be a marathon, not a sprint. The pupillage application process takes time: start researching chambers early, set aside plenty of time to write applications (and very carefully proofread them), book an appointment with your Employability service and be prepared to apply more than just one year. Don’t try to rush the process: give each application the time it needs to be high quality. If I could only offer one tip, it would be to aim for quality over quantity when it comes to submitting pupillage applications. Submitting fewer, high quality pupillage applications is better than submitting a larger number of rushed applications.
Beverley Dawes will be speaking at ‘Pupillage application masterclass — with Gatehouse, Henderson, Keating, Landmark, Radcliffe Chambers and ULaw’, a virtual event taking place Wednesday 22 January 2025. Apply to attend.
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