Thursday, 15 March 2012

T Minus 14 Days

In two weeks (give or take a couple of minutes) the Pupillage Portal will once again open its jaws of doom and admit its latest flock of lambs to sacrifice on the "Altar of OLPAS". I'm going to copyright that term and write a film one day.

Anyhow, the next two weeks will be the last chance I get to relax and not think about the application system. In two weeks time I'll be thrust into crafting 12 applications: the 12 applications that could determine the course of my entire career. If you've read me for more than a few days you'll know that I'm prone to flowery language and overstatement. On this occasion, I assure you, I'm not being overly dramatic. 

Looking back at my attempts last year I was painfully under-prepared - I had not researched Chambers properly, I thought that the system would be easy, pupillage would be easy to get, the same way that everything else had come to me fairly easily in life. I was a complete dumbarse.

What I got right last year I got right by fluke - speaking to other, more experienced, friends who had been part of the process, or who had actually achieved a pupillage, I realised just how far behind the curve I was.

This year I hope not to make the same mistakes, but we shall see.

In the next two weeks I have three exams: Opinion Writing (4 and a half hours), Drafting (3 and a half hours) and Professional Ethics (2 hours). I'll, of course, let you know how they go, but in the mean time I'll also try to post about what I did last year, what I think I got wrong, and what actually happened to my applications: how I was effectively offered pupillage, and how I then never heard anything from that Set again.

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