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Last years pupils, Sophie Holme and Simon Passfield, write:
The first six
My first six months of pupillage at Guildhall Chambers were spent shadowing my supervisor and other members of the Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence team. As is usual in this specialism, I spent the majority of my time doing paperwork in chambers and always received detailed constructive feedback from my supervisor. I was encouraged to experience as many different aspects of this area of practice as possible. I could approach any member of the team and ask to shadow them in inquests/disciplinary hearings/joint settlement meetings/conferences/interlocutory or final court hearings at any level.
The first six is a very different challenge to the second. Although you can continue to do work for more senior members in your second six, your own work starts to take up increasing amounts of time. Your own work, however, is appropriate to your level of call, whereas the work in your first six offers more opportunity to research trickier points of law and apply these to denser factual scenarios. It was a privilege to be able to talk through these cases with team members at all levels of call and everyone (and I believe this would be true for all the other specialist teams here) really took time out to do so.
Sophie Holme
The second six
If the first six months of pupillage is a time to settle in, familiarise oneself with chambers and acquire the necessary skills and experience to ensure a comparatively seamless transition from the more relaxed environment of the BPTC to the frenetic world of practice at the Bar, the second six is the point at which one is immediately thrust into the spotlight, being able to take instructions and act for all intents and purposes as a ‘proper barrister’. As the final days of the first six loom ever closer, they bring with them a degree of anticipation and dread in equal measure, before one is finally exposed to the baptism of fire, that nerve-racking first instruction that means representing a real person in a real case in front of a real judge.
Experiences of second six vary wildly depending upon area of practice. As a specialist insolvency pupil, I appeared in court approximately two or three times a week. Whilst I attended many hearings in Bristol, I also undertook work in other courts both on the Western Circuit and further afield including such diverse locations as Grantham, Portsmouth, St Albans and Croydon. The frequent short notice of these hearings or late receipt of instructions resulted in many journeys starting at depressingly early hours. The level and complexity of the cases in which I was involved extended from unopposed bankruptcy petitions in the county court where the petition debt was less than £1,000 to a contested administration application in the High Court in respect of a company with debts in excess of £5 million. I also undertook a fair amount of advisory work and drafting and regularly found that the relevant legal issues were by no means straightforward, the decision to instruct a pupil more often than not being driven by financial restrictions rather than the simplicity of the cases. I noticed a marked difference between this and opinion writing and drafting at Bar School; in real practice there is never necessarily a definite answer to a problem and lay clients are far more interested in pragmatic advice as to their prospects of success and likely recovery than a discursive essay on the development of the law.
In addition to undertaking my own work, I was also required to continue to carry out work for other members of my team, requiring careful time management to ensure that I was able to complete this within the requisite timeframe whilst remaining fully prepared for all of my own cases.
Throughout my second six, I felt that there was a strong support network within chambers upon which I could fall back at any time and I frequently asked the advice of not only my supervisor but also other members of my team as to both my substantive case and tactics, something which I continue to do as a tenant. Overall, I found this time to be a thoroughly enjoyable, stimulating and rewarding six months fully preparing me for the rigours of tenancy.
Simon Passfield