2023 Pupillage Feedback

Following our advert for a family and immigration pupillage starting in autumn 2023, Black Antelope Law was pleased to receive such a large number of high quality applications for the position. In fact, as a result of the calibre of the applications received, we ended up shortlisting 70% more candidates for first round interview then we had intended and for many of those who missed out, they did so on fine margins.

As part of the pupillage recruitment process, we assess candidates on both their written and oral advocacy skills and this assessment starts at the application form stage. Some candidates lost marks as a result of failing to demonstrate the following skills and attributes:

1. Conciseness - candidates were expected to exercise judgment regarding the length of their answers. Some candidates' answers were excessively lengthy whilst others were far too short to fully engage with the question(s); and

2. Good English language skills - whilst some allowance can be made for the odd typo or grammatical mistake, some applications repeatedly contained one or both of the aforementioned errors, despite otherwise submitting an overall strong application;

In terms of the application questionnaire, the following general trends were observed in applications that did not make our shortlist.

• Question 8 - some candidates failed to address why they were specifically interested in practising in family and immigration law, the two specialist areas advertised;

• Question 9 - some candidates despite being asked to provide an example, gave more than one example.

• Question 10 - some candidates failed to explain how they used their initiative to achieve a positive outcome and/or alleviate their client's vulnerability.

• Question 11 - some candidates who had not missed a professional deadline, failed to explain how they ensure that this does not happen. For those who had missed a deadline, some candidates failed to how the experience had influenced them for the future.

• Question 12 - some candidates failed to set out what they learned from the scenario despite having disagreed with a specific aspect of the task.