Bar Council brings Pupillage Gateway deadline forward from April to January
updated on 13 July 2015
From 2016 the Bar Council will open the Pupillage Gateway in mid-January, with offers to be made at the beginning of May.
The system currently runs from the beginning of April, when the system opens, to August, when offers must be accepted. The decision to change the timetable and open in January was made in consultation with BPTC students, pupils and chambers. The new timetable is designed to (i) avoid the clash between interviews and exams, which have been a feature of the existing timetable, and (ii) allow students to know whether they have secured a pupillage before committing to the expensive BPTC.
This new timetable will also be more in line with those sets of chambers that recruit outside of the Gateway.
First reported on Legal Cheek, news of the timetable change caused a flurry of comments, many of which were critical of the speed with which the change has been introduced and the continued potential for clashes between interviews and exams.
