Pupils and chambers/Kritik an Bewerbung für Referendariat als Barrister

I read this post on Simon Myerson’s blog when it first appeared on July 13.

Pupil barristers need to spend some time at a set of chambers. Under the heading Here Are the Results of the BVC Jury, Myerson collects comments of prospective pupils who were treated rudely at interview, and he has a Wall of Shame of particularly criticized chambers, and a Buttress of Acclaim for the ones that got positive comments (some chambers appear on both lists!).

Charon QC points out that there’s been a bit of a flamer in the comments (‘Troubled Barrister’). Fun.

24 thoughts on “Pupils and chambers/Kritik an Bewerbung für Referendariat als Barrister

  1. The real villains of the piece in my jaundiced opinion are the sets of chambers which appear on neither list – Wall of Shame or Buttress of Acclaim – as they, tight-fistedly, withdrew from the pupillage scheme years ago when unpaid pupillages were phased out.

    One of the main reasons for the phase-out was the example set by Solicitors’ Training Contracts which don’t get registered by the Law Soc./Sols’ Regulatory Authority unless a minimum wage is paid.

    The Bar Council itself has said – or rather published – that one-third of pupillages disappeared overnight in E&W as a result.

    Now there are still the same number – or failed applicants increasing exponentially year-on-year up to the 6-year BVC staleness limit – of Bar Students chasing and fighting over fewer pupillage places.

  2. She lost last year on the word Fackeltanz, so I imagine she boned up on the German words last year. We here in Cleveland, Ohio are quite proud of her. She got a front page article in the paper this morning. Unfortunately, they hyphenated Stromuhr wrong (Stro-muhr) in the article. I’m tempted to write a letter to the editor to correct it… :-)

    • Do they always do that? I had an entry on the 2006 one, where the winning word was ‘Ursprache’. What dictionaries are these words in? Surely not English ones, since they’re not like Zeitgeist or Schadenfreude, relatively well known in English.

      • I have Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (unabridged), the kind that are normally only in libraries on a podium-like stand and it contains all three of the German/English words in question: ursprache, fackeltanz, stromuhr (all not capitalized in English).

        • Thanks. Yes, I have that too. It’s a useful doorstop. So I have to imagine schoolchildren reading it to find the odd-looking words. A theometer to measure blood flow through an artery. Word division: stro-muhr!

    • I don’t think that can be right. White asparagus has such a hard surface that it doesn’t need a condom.

  3. What does the authenticity certificate look like? Abensberg is the local famous *Spargelort*, apparently all the best stuff comes from there. What should I look for when checking for certification?

  4. 2.99 a kilo?! Sounds like dumping prices to me so I’d be suspicious. The butt ends for making soup go for more than that here.

    • I wouldn’t know about the prices – I just know they didn’t have any green. I will have to check up at the Nuremberg Spargelmarkt.

      • Herbslebener Spargel is supposed to be the best around here (very locally) and it runs 5.99 to 9.99 a kilo. There may occasionally be some gigantic kind that go for more. The green is about 2.99, but that might be per pound? It is kind of amazing because I can hardly think of another vegetable/fruit I would be willing to pay 10 euros a kilo for. Organic strawberries maybe? Chanterelles?

        • Actually, I never eat white asparagus. A few years ago I got food poisoning after eating lamb chops with white asparagus, and although I’m sure the problem was the meat, it’s the asparagus I can’t face. Some years I eat a bit of green asparagus because I suppose it’s good for me.
          I suppose porcini cost that much, but you don’t need so much.

  5. And nobody wants to dig out the stuff here–although I can’t blame them. That’s REAL work. There are usually annual threats from the employment office to force unemployed Germans to do these jobs but that didn’t make the news this year. The economy is doing too well, I guess.

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