Future pupil barrister Saul Agar-Ward offers his top pointers to ensure you’re fully ready for application season
With summer now drawn to a close, aspiring barristers should already be turning their minds to the next pupillage application cycle. The Bar Council has confirmed that training opportunities will go live on the Gateway from 20 November , but a strong application starts well before then. As someone who has successfully navigated the process, here are six ways to give yourself the best possible chance in this ultra-competitive field.
Core competencies
To be a barrister, you need to be good at certain things. Some, like being persuasive, or digesting information quickly, are obvious. Some are less so, such as being resilient, or being able to deal with difficult clients. Chambers will test these, whether explicitly (‘describe a time you persuaded somebody of something’) or implicitly (‘why would you make a good barrister?’), so it pays to get ahead.
I created a spider diagram with ‘good barrister’ at the centre, then branched out every quality I could think of whether from minis or my research. For each, I found at least examples from my academic or professional life, writing them up in STAR format. This meant that when the time came to demonstrate that I had those qualities, on paper or at interview, I could.
Mini-pupillages
A mini-pupillage is a valuable insight into the barrister’s world: the specific area of the barrister you shadow, life at that chambers, and life at the self-employed Bar in general. Approached correctly, they also let you demonstrate real interest in the sets you apply to.
There is no sugarcoating this: applying for minis is not fun. They increasingly feel like a practice run for the pupillage process itself. There’s enough to be said about these for their own article, but here are some basics.
Apply, apply, apply! I faced a lot of rejection before being accepted for my first mini. Don’t be disheartened if you face the same. Volume is important.
Tailor each application. While quantity is important, so is quality. Instead of firing off a generic application, think what about this set interests you: a sub-specialism, their size, a recent case, or a new tenant with a similar profile to your own? Use these to structure your forms and covering letters.
On the mini itself, think about what you are watching: what sort of hearing were you at, what happened, and how did the barrister handle it? What did you learn? Consider how you might talk about your experience to a panel or to a friend. This will help you show chambers what you got from your time trailing a barrister.
Chambers research
When you write your applications, you will, 100% guaranteed, have to tell the chambers why you want to join them. The answer to that, right now, may be somewhere on the spectrum from ‘you’re a good set with good work’ to ‘I just want pupillage somewhere, anywhere’, but you will need more than that to pass a paper sift. You will need a genuine interest in the work and set you may be spending the rest of your professional life at.
This is not something you can fake, and not something you can develop over a couple of afternoons in January. Start now.
Start reading about the sets that you’re interested in. Don’t just look at the flagship cases with lots of KCs, as you may not be near these for quite some time. Look at what their junior juniors (under 5-10 years’ call) are up to. Are they appearing in high profile cases (usually led)? Do they lead their own cases? Read the reported cases in which they appear and note what stands out to you.
One tip I was given: look at the five most junior tenants at the set — do you fit their profile? Sets that have exclusively taken people with PhDs in international human rights law are unlikely to be interested in someone with a high 2:1 undergraduate degree. Chambers full of magic circle career-changers may raise an eyebrow at somebody straight out of university. If none of the five fit you, think twice about applying there.
Attend pupillage fairs and talk to people from that set, whether barristers or otherwise. Get a feel for the work they do, the work you’d be doing, and the atmosphere of the chambers.
Overviews, such as The Legal Cheek Chambers Most List, are a great jumping-off point — but you need to actually jump off. Why are you interested in this set?
Building your skills
If you read about core competencies above and panicked, pay attention. Pro bono and advocacy development are great ways to build the competencies chambers are looking for.
Pro bono. Volunteering, whether at a legal clinic, as a representative, or some other legal-adjacent role, is not only a way to make the world a better place, but to build your skills.
I signed up for my university’s legal clinic, where I spent the next couple years triaging clients and writing up advice for them. This gave me hands-on experience of working with people who had tricky legal problems, developing my soft skills as well as my legal research. I also signed up to be a legal representative with a trade union, which helped me build my advocacy and case management skills.
If you’re at university, great. Sign up for your law clinic. Try for other opportunities like the FRU or the School Exclusion Project. If not, try your local council, or Citizens’ Advice.
Advocacy. Your applications will be your first pieces of written advocacy the set will see, so you need to hone this skill.
I signed up for as many moots as I could. This helps you with concision and precision, through writing your skeleton arguments, and it gets you comfortable both speaking in public and doing so in a formal way.
Legal essays
If the more traditional ways of showing interest aren’t working for you, think outside the box. Essays are a great way to show you are interested in the areas a set practices.
I wrote a couple of articles on topics I found interesting, one for my university law journal, and one for my Inn’s student journal. This deepened my understanding of those areas, gave me something to discuss on paper and at interview, and getting through a competitive selection process was itself worth mentioning as an achievement.
Essay competitions are a dime a dozen, and are generally open to those without pupillage or training contracts, meaning you’ll be up against your peers, not some grizzled KC!
Find your USP
So, you’ve shown why you’d be a good barrister, gained experience and skills, and you’ve researched your future chambers. What’s next? Well, you want to stand out at the paper sift (in a good way!) The reality is that plenty of applicants will have stellar grades, work experience, and mini-pupillages under their belt.
However, you will have something, an experience, an interest, a chapter of your life, that they will not. Find it, and plan how you can weave it into your applications: not just for the sake of it, but to demonstrate those core competencies and show you’re a well-rounded individual, not some law machine. Remember, those who read your applications will be your future colleagues, should you be taken on.
Finally, some caveats. The pupillage process is immensely competitive: in 2025, only 287 candidates out of nearly 4,000 received an offer through the Gateway. You will need a lot of luck. Some of these things I think I did well, others I know I could have done better. Keep your chin up, start the work now, and remember: you only have to be lucky once!
Saul Agar-Ward is a writer at Legal Cheek. He is due to start pupillage at 39 Essex Chambers in September 2027.
