Extenuating circumstances: difficult, difficult, lemon difficult

All kinds of unfortunate things beyond our control can happen to put normal life on hold. Illness, bereavement, family problems - all are likely to affect every one of us at some point. Shit happens, to put it more eloquently, yet all too often it can seem that the pressures of daily life make very little allowance for this. For people on the intensely demanding and competitive path to a career in law, such issues can detrimentally affect academic study and results, how much work experience can be accrued (if any) and, ultimately, the quality of applications for training contracts and pupillages.

Such unfortunate situations are supposed to be mitigated by educational institutions and employers making allowances for extenuating circumstances, when appropriate. However, whether this actually works as well as it should is debatable; the process of making the relevant parties aware of any extenuating circumstances is often murky and potentially fraught with difficulties. An applicant who has suffered a serious illness may, understandably, be uncomfortable about telling recruiters whom they’ve never met about something so personal. Meanwhile, in the cases of some law firms that use automated application screening systems, any bad grades that could be a result of extenuating circumstances may mean that a candidate’s application is screened out before it is even looked at with human eyes.

How then, should you go about making your course provider or potential employer aware of any genuine extenuating circumstances that have affected your application? This is very difficult and sensitive, as it is important not to give the impression that you have a chip on your shoulder - while any recruiter could tell you of the many unfortunate instances where a candidate has attempted to brush off bad grades with a sob story that is, frankly, spurious. The first point is to only consider this as an option when you feel that extenuating circumstances should truly apply - trying to spin the fact that you were hungover in an exam is not going to cut it, while it is also a pretty low and unscrupulous thing to do. When something genuinely unfortunate has happened beyond your control, you should tactfully and professionally (there is no need to tell anyone the most personal or painful details about what has happened) contact the recruitment team at the firm you want to apply to and enquire about how best to display any extenuating circumstances in an application. The reaction you get will differ from employer to employer; some will brush you off, but others will help you as far as they can. Finally, remember that you can always contact the LC.N Oracle at [email protected] for more tailored advice regarding your own specific circumstances.