If you have been on twitter the last few days you will have seen so many tweets from current and prospective BPTC students, as well as LLB students, GDL students and those who have been already called – waiting for the Pupillage Gateway to open.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Pupillage Gateway it is a platform that you use to apply for some of your Pupillage choices/applications.
(It is a bit like UCAS but for aspiring barristers, however quite a lot more onerous!).
Not every chambers uses the Gateway and you can only apply for 12 on the Gateway, and as many outside of the Gateway as you want.
Some chambers that are out of the Gateway have already had their deadlines for 2018 Pupillage (and these deadlines were as early as September/October 2016).
There are some standard questions which populate themselves (name, address, education etc.) but every Chambers adds their own questions. Don’t forget that you can always go on and generate the answers to the standard (non-chamber specific questions) well in advance of the application window opening!
Some are as you would expect, Why this area of law? Why this Chambers? but some are slightly more unusual. Describe certain words, choose an area of law you would change and why etc.
The Bar Council has put together a guide on how to use it, which you can check out here.
Good luck to everyone applying!
Rebecca x