Pupillage Postscipt: Some Very Scary Statistics

[major_clanger]

The Bar Standards Board - the body which regulates the training and discipline of barristers - has just published the Woods Report on the Bar Vocational Course. The BVC is the professional postgraduate diploma that aspiring barristers must complete between getting a law degree or conversion course and doing pupillage; I start mine, at BPP London, in September.

The Woods Report was aimed at two main issues affecting the current BVC. One is that it is sometimes seen as not providing the relevant skills needed to enter pupillage. The other, and in some ways more immediate concern, is that the BVC providers are seen as allowing too many weak candidates onto and through the course with little prospect of attaining a pupillage or tenancy as a barrister. The report's main conclusions are summarised here, but in essence the course was generally found fit for purpose (which is a relief, given how much I'm spending to do it) but recommendations were made to fine-tune it to better sit with current needs. Much more of the meat of the report went into the second issue, for which some very sobering statistics were supplied.

I've commented before about the mismatch between BVC student numbers and the availability of pupillages. The figures I'd seen are borne out by those quoted in the Woods report:

2004-5: 1665 registered BVC students, 497 pupillages.
2005-6: 1745 registered BVC students, 490 pupillages.
2006-7: 1932 registered BVC students, 471 pupillages.

The report notes that these numbers are for pupillages offered by independent Chambers, and that there are around another 30 a year offered by the employed bar (e.g. the Government Legal Service). Furthermore, some 23% of registered BVC students are from overseas and do not compete for pupillage in England and Wales. Even so, the ratio of pupillages to BVC students chasing them is around 3:1 and rising.

But what I've noted, but not seen figures on before, is that this encourages students who haven't been successful in getting a pupillage place before starting the BVC (i.e. ones like me!) to apply again once they have done the course. How many do this? The report only has figures for pupillages offered through the consolidated OLPAS system, but even so they are bordering on stunning. To quote para 28:

"In the present round 294 pupillages are offered under the OLPAS. 3,768 individual students have applied for them."

Now that 3,768 figure has to be seen in the light of two other factors. On the one hand, some of the people applying first-time around will not get onto the BVC, perhaps because they have conditional offers that they do not subsequently get the grades to fulfil. On the other, it won't include overseas students doing the BVC. I think it is still safe, however, to say the following:

There are nearly 13 applicants for every pupillage offered through OLPAS.

There are at least as many post-BVC as pre-BVC applicants.


Now these figures are for pupillages offered through OLPAS, but I see no reason why matters should differ for those Chambers which sit outside OLPAS. Indeed, there are reasons to suspect they may be even more competitive. But this probably goes a long way to explaining why somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of students on the BVC will - like me - not have secured pupillage.

So, I am in good company, but it is a very large good company and I will be competing with them all next year, plus another 1500-2000 new applicants. More important than ever, then, that I do all I can to maximise my chances of success. My action plan is:

1) Make sure I get a distinction in my LLM by doing the best dissertation I can,
2) Get papers published - I have two or three projects that might lead to this.
3) Speak at more conferences. Again, there are some prospects for next year.
4) Do more mini-pupillages, particularly at target Chambers I've not done MPs with yet.
5) Find relevant pro bono work.
6) Seek detailed careers advice from my law school and Inn.

Comments

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

There are far more solicitors jobs, but there are also far more places on the LPC - it has in the past suffered from exactly the same licence to print money problem, no idea what the application numbers are like at the moment, but if the steady income stream from commercial property transactions dries up again then the supply and demand could become very unbalanced for them as well.