Here's our suggested timetable for recruitment to the Bar. By all means draw up a timetable of your own, but if you do, make sure you're clued up about closing dates for the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) and pupillage applications.

First-year law and second-year non-law students

Winter vacation and spring term
The key to this year is thinking ahead. Do your homework on the Bar and the legal profession, get involved in activities that will look good on your CV and join an Inn of Court (if a law undergraduate). Note that you must join an Inn before commencing the BPTC. Once you've successfully completed the BPTC you'll be called to the Bar by your Inn. You'll also have to undertake 12 qualifying sessions (previously known as 'dining') before being called to the Bar.

Research and apply for work placement schemes in chambers (known as 'mini-pupillages') for your summer holiday. Try to arrange a few stints in different chambers to give you an overview of the various work areas, unless you're unusually keen to specialise in one particular work area. Remember that without work experience, any application for pupillage is unlikely to be taken seriously. Work experience will not only give you a stronger CV, but also help you decide whether law really is the career for you.

Second-year law and final-year non-law students

Autumn term
Attend relevant careers events (including careers centre presentations and talks).

Look into funding possibilities for postgraduate training (eg, local education authority grants and scholarships given by Inns). Check closing dates.

Winter vacation and spring term
Keep applying for mini-pupillages.

Attend careers fairs (including pupillage fairs).

Non-law degree students will need to apply for the conversion course, the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL). The closing date is usually some time in February. Applications must be made through the Central Applications Board (www.lawcabs.ac.uk).

Summer vacation
Gain some further work experience.

Look at the different BPTC providers and investigate the application procedure.

Final-year law and GDL students

Autumn term 
Finalise your funding options and be clear about closing dates for funding applications. The Inns and some chambers have various awards available. Contact them directly for more information.

The centralised BPTC application system usually opens in November and closes in January. After offers have been made and accepted or rejected, a clearance round opens at the beginning of April and closes in July. You can check the dates and apply at www.barprofessionaltraining.co.uk.

Spring term
Attend pupillage fairs. The National Pupillage Fair is normally held in March.

Applications are made through the centralised site, www.pupillages.com (formerly OLPAS), in the final year of your law degree (or GDL year for non-law undergraduates). It opens at the end of March each year and closes at the end of April. You can apply to up to 12 chambers, plus make one 'clearing' application.

Some chambers do not accept applications through the centralised website, but they are still listed on the site. You can apply to as many of these chambers as you like, but with no centralised system or timetable, deadlines will vary so you must check chambers' individual websites for details of how/when to apply.

Summer term
Pupillage offers via the centralised system will be made at the end of July. Clearing occurs in August/September of that year (although note that in 2011 no chambers registered for clearing).

Obtain a certificate for completion of the academic stage of legal training.

BPTC year

If you were unsuccessful in your pupillage applications last year, apply again this year in the same way as above.

Once you have successfully completed the BPTC, you will be called to the Bar by your Inn.

Pupillage

Pupillage is one year spent in an authorised pupillage training organisation (either barristers' chambers or another approved legal environment), usually split into two six-month periods referred to as 'sixes'.

First six
Without practising, you will observe and assist your pupil supervisor and other barristers in chambers. The intention is that the pupil share the supervisor’s daily professional life.

Second six
During these six months you’ll be a practising barrister. You may have cases and your own clients whom you’ll represent in court. Now you start to build up your reputation as a barrister.

Continuing professional development

Barristers must complete a set programme of compulsory ongoing training. Continuing professional development (CPD) covers advocacy, case preparation and procedure, professional conduct and ethics, and accounting. In your first three years of practice, you’ll fall under the new practitioners’ programme in which you’ll have to fulfil 45 hours of CPD. Then, in the established practitioners’ programme, you’ll have to do 12 hours per year. CPD activities include attending courses directly relevant to practice, teaching law on undergraduate courses and writing law books or publications.