FAQs

We take on up to 8 twelve month pupillages each year, with a view to taking on all pupils at the culmination of pupillage.

We look for candidates with a fine intellect, clarity of thought and expression, a capacity for sustained hard work under pressure, integrity and an ability to achieve. You should be confident and enthusiastic, and possess the ability to relate appropriately to the very widest cross section of society.

We have a minimum requirement of an upper second class degree.

We believe that our approach to pupillage is unique and we invest a lot of time and money in the process. Our strength in depth means that you will experience a wide variety of work from the outset, and work with barristers who are leaders in their field. Pupils and junior barristers are in court virtually every day. You have the ability to build your own practice and develop your advocacy from an early stage.

Pupils can expect to:

• Be allocated a pupil supervisor, but will also have the opportunity to experience other work outside of their supervisor’s practice
• Attend hearings in court with their pupil supervisor
• Attend conferences with solicitors and lay clients
• Assist their pupil supervisor in the drafting of documents including advices and pleadings, as well as drafting skeleton arguments for hearings
• Receive regular feedback from their pupil supervisor
• Participate in social and charity events

The majority of PI court work at this level concerns claims arising from road traffic accidents. You can expect to attend quantum hearings, where liability for the accident is agreed and a judge is deciding on the award of damages. You can also expect to attend small claims hearings where both liability and quantum are usually in dispute. In terms of court work, you might also attend infant approval hearings, where both liability and quantum are agreed but the judge has to approve the amount to be awarded in damages to a child.

The other area of court work you can expect to be involved in is application hearings. These hearings deal with procedural and case management issues which arise in a much wider variety of cases. You might, for example, deal with applications for relief from sanctions; for strike out; to decide on allocation to a track; to decide on case management directions; and so on. This will give you good exposure to procedural and case management issues in more complex cases.

When you aren’t in court, you can expect to have a fairly busy paper practice. This will involve providing advice on a broader range of PI cases, potentially including public liability (trips and slips are most common), employers’ liability (accidents at work) and potentially other areas such as defective premises. In some cases, you will be drafting court documents (particulars of claim, defences etc) as well.

Financial matters are often a worry for pupils in particular, and it’s understandably an area candidates are nervous to ask about. During second six, you will bill for the work you do but you may not receive the funds for a while in many cases. To help with cash flow, chambers guarantees a minimum monthly income and will ‘top up’ any earnings you receive during each month of your second six, up to this minimum amount. This guarantees you a monthly income whilst you build up your aged debt (cases you have billed for and are awaiting payment).

The answer to this question is personal to you but here are a few points to think about. The competition for pupillage is fierce. This alone shouldn’t deter you from applying but have an honest look at your CV and experience and ask yourself whether your application could be made stronger by building in more evidence of your aspirations at the Bar. Pupillage applications take a lot of effort and time, and the interview process at Exchange requires evidence. If you feel you have enough, great. If not, don’t worry, taking the time to build a better application with more experience gives more chances of success in the longer term.

The short answer is ‘yes’.

Advocacy exercises are built into both rounds of the interview process at Exchange. They give you a chance to use critical, analytical thinking and give the panel a snapshot of what advocate you might become in the future – showcase your potential and do the best you can on the day.

Certain experiences like previous legal work and mini pupillages obviously have their value, but you must be able to expand on what you have learnt from these experiences. Be wary of embarking on superficial tick-box exercises.

On an application form, at least some of your experiences need to show a commitment to the Bar. Secondly, they may show a suitability to a particular practice area. Thirdly, they may show a host of other desirable qualities that would interest chambers. In preparing for an interview, think about how you frame those experiences, and they might become even more valuable!

There are no formal assessments at Exchange Chambers. Pupils are expected to undertake paperwork i.e. drafting pleadings, advices, skeleton arguments, and draft orders. Written and verbal feedback will be provided for each piece of work. However, future pupils should be aware of the formal assessments mandated by the BSB that must be completed during pupillage. These include the ethics exam, the compulsory advocacy course (run by the Inns and on Circuit), and the compulsory negotiation course, which will be required after September 2025.

As an aspiring barrister, it is important to recognise that pupillage is demanding and not for the faint-hearted. You will encounter challenges such as an intense workload, which may require working evenings or weekends, balancing the need to learn with the pressure to perform well, and maintaining good social relationships with colleagues. At Exchange Chambers, a helpful safeguard is the availability of the pupillage manager, whom you can approach with concerns that you may not feel comfortable discussing with your supervisor. This resource offers reassurance, and the quarterly reviews will provide you with an overview of your general progress.

Some of the award may be paid to you before you commence your pupillage. Thereafter, the pupillage award is paid in monthly instalments for the first 6 months.  In the second six, the pupillage award takes the format of monthly guaranteed earnings. For example, if your guaranteed earnings are £2,000 but you have only earned £1,000 in a given month, Chambers would pay you £1,000 to ensure that you earned the total guaranteed minimum in that month. If your earnings exceed the guaranteed minimum, then Chambers would not pay you anything in that month.

Indeed! The common law pupillage allows you to shadow a variety of practice areas especially in the first 3 months of pupillage. You should be open-minded and immerse yourself in as many practice areas as possible. From the fourth month you should consider which areas you would like to practise in second six. You can discuss your preferences with your pupil supervisor and at your pupillage review meetings. By the final month before second six begins, you should have a clear idea of your practice areas so that you can begin shadowing junior members practising in those areas. Remember to keep an open line of communication with Chambers.

It will often be the case that you don’t have an obvious connection to a particular Chambers i.e you haven’t done a mini-pupillage with them. However, there are still ways that you can formulate a compelling answer to this question. In this answer, Chambers’ are looking for you to demonstrate a genuine insight into their set. A way of gaining this insight is attending chambers open evenings, attending law school/ Inns of Court panel events and taking the networking opportunities available to you. This will enable you to gain a deeper understanding (beyond the website) of what the Chambers is about and the specific type of work they do. If you have spoken to barristers from a particular set, you can include this in your answer; if you have spoken about particular policies or the vibe of a set with a member, you can certainly include that to. Try and be specific; only referencing chambers expertise in the area you are interested in won’t be particularly inspiring. Finally, don’t be afraid to be honest – for example, if location is an important reason for your set of choice – it is appropriate for that to form part of your answer.

It depends on the question, but I would try and include a variety of styles throughout your application – remember your application will be examined both for its content and the written advocacy displayed throughout the form. Consider headings for some questions: for example, the common questions such as ‘why do you want to be a barrister’ or ‘why would you make a good barrister’. Structuring these answers with headings enables the reader to quickly ascertain the salient points and finish reading it with a clear understanding of your answer. I think most people would agree that big chunks of text are off-putting so try to avoid that – as you would if constructing a skeleton argument for a moot. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box when structuring an answer but focus on which style makes it easiest for the reader.