The Pupillage Portal: a journey back in time

Applying for pupillages can be a very tedious and time-consuming process. Some chambers demand hand-written covering letters, others have their own application forms, while there is also a communal application system which many sets are signed up to.

A bit of history

The Bar Council first tried to simplify and co-ordinate pupillage applications in 1996 when it introduced the Pupillage Application Clearing House (PACH). The system required applicants to select 12 chambers, complete an application form on a floppy disc and post it to the clearing house, which then forwarded the applications onto the chosen pupillage providers. The aim was to save candidates time and effort, but the scheme was heavily criticised, mainly because of inconsistencies between timetables among PACH and non-PACH chambers. It was replaced by OLPAS (Online Pupillage Application System) in 2000.

There were also application deadline issues under OLPAS, and as a result, the Bar Council tried to force chambers to comply with a common timetable. This led in 2002 to protests from 15 leading sets. It seems, however, that the timetable issues have now been more or less resolved, with chambers bound to adhere to a common schedule, detailed on pupillages.com. Other major criticisms of OLPAS were its 150-word limit for questions, and the fact that the form did not allow candidates to tailor their applications to individual chambers.

The Portal

I went on pupillages.com the Friday before this year's application season opened to find a redesigned website entitled 'Pupillage Portal'. The site has a 1990s feel to it, not exactly suggesting a modern outlook. The header contains a photo of two female barristers in court dress, which supposedly ticks the 'equality' box. Next to this sits a logo featuring a circle and a triangle. The navigation is unclear, the registration link is nowhere to be seen and the FAQs are inconveniently hidden away.

A few hours later, with the help of a friend, I was able to access the new application form. It seemed to contain more questions than last year's OLPAS form. Then the website went down for a whole day, which was presumably caused by a very high level of activity (something that happened shortly before the OLPAS deadline last year) - not a great way to introduce a new service.

The Good

OLPAS had become outmoded, causing many chambers to opt out of the scheme. And on a personal level, I couldn't bear the thought of having to complete the same old form for the third time.

The Pupillage Portal has actually brought some improvement to the system. You can now tailor your application to specific chambers, while the form itself has become more detailed and the word limits have been increased. The enhanced search allows you to filter pupillage vacancies by city, circuit and practice area, among other criteria. And the redundant autumn season has been replaced by a clearing system which is meant to work in a similar way to the process used by UCAS, the university entry organisation, by having a record of unfulfilled vacancies and candidates without a pupillage. Also, the new equal opportunities monitoring section is now split into two parts and includes a question about your debts.

The Bad

The system may be new, but already it has attracted a great deal of criticism. One of my fellow pupillage seekers said that the new system was "too complex", while another called it "something of an unnecessarily contrived kerfuffle".

The increased word limit has not been welcomed by all. The fear is that chambers will be bombarded with pages and pages of pointless 'chatter' from those unfamiliar with the concept of brevity, and therefore have less time to consider worthy applications. As another disappointed pupillage seeker noted, the new form may potentially make "significant contributions to the work done by chambers' paper shredder".

Also, the 'newsflash' on the old website - which served as a useful tool to track new non-OLPAS vacancies - has gone, which is a shame. 

Innovations will always attract criticism - but, in the case of the Pupillage Portal, some of it is fair. Still, despite its flaws, overall the system is an improvement on its predecessors. When the glitches are corrected, it has the potential to be a useful tool in the pupillage search.

For more from Ekaterina, see her Legal Village blogs on work experience, scholarship interviews, searching for pupillage and the Bar Vocational Course.