BNU alumni Alex Granville shares advice and tips to becoming a Barrister
BNU alumni Alex Granville shares advice and tips to becoming a Barrister
"Being a barrister is a great vocation and I would advise all students with drive, determination and great advocacy skills who wish to become barristers, to go for it."
Alex Granville, a former Buckinghamshire New University Law student and now a barrister in a wide-ranging interview with Law Lecturer, Ze'ev Portner discussed his experience of qualifying as a barrister and shared some useful tips for BNU law students who wish to pursue a career at the Bar.
After graduating with an upper second in 2019, Alex spent a year working in retail before going on to study on the Bar course. The Bar course is very expensive and costs between £14,000 to £18,000 depending where you study in the country. Alex applied for a scholarship whilst in his third year to the Inns of Court. He was unsuccessful first time round but was successful on his second attempt and he received a full scholarship from Inner Temple, so the moral of the story is that you need perseverance if you wish to become a barrister.
Alex spent twelve months studying on the Bar course at Cardiff University at its law school which he combined with a master's degree in the form of a written dissertation. He gained extensive legal experience by working as a clerk at Cardiff Crown Court before undertaking pupillage and qualifying as a barrister.
Barrister Alex Granville at the Student Hub
The Bar Course
Alex said: "The Bar course is a very practical course. You are applying what you have learnt academically to real life situations. It is no longer textbook law, but how do you argue your case in court, how do you draft legal documents and how do you undertake conference calls with clients, for example."
The first piece of advice Alex gives to future BNU barristers is that "students must treat the Bar course like a full-time job. You must absolutely do all the reading and stay on top of the reading. It is a very tough course, but with drive and determination you can get through it."
Working as a Crown Court Clerk
The second piece of advice that Alex gives to future BNU barristers is that all legal work experience is invaluable.
"The job of a clerk is essentially an administrative role such as dealing with counsel, logging significant events that occurred during the trial and dealing with the various bodies the court has to deal with, such as the probation service, the crown prosecution service and defence counsel.
I was very lucky that I had exposure to the judiciary on a daily basis. Every morning I would stand in chambers discussing cases with crown court judges and would listen to their legal opinion as to how they viewed the case they were hearing, based on the evidence submitted the previous day. This was really interesting and beneficial for me. The other advantage of working as a clerk is that you spend the whole day watching barristers advocating in court. As someone who wanted to become a barrister, there was no better experience than this and working as a clerk was key for me to being successful in obtaining the highly competitive pupillage."
Pupillage
The third piece of advice that Alex gives to future BNU barristers is that when applying for pupillage, law students should have undertaken mini pupillages. This is essential. "I was always told at least three mini pupillages, but the more you can do the better, because you need to show commitment to the profession as being a barrister is a vocation. Having also some sort of other legal experience, whether as a paralegal, county court advocate or working for the court services as was my case is almost essential."
The application process
Alex's fourth piece of advice is that the decision to award a pupillage is made by "practicing barristers who have their own cases and are given 40 curriculum vitae and cover letters to go through in their limited spare time. You must make sure that your cover letter and curriculum vitae has no spelling mistakes and is grammatically correct, because if not, they will probably throw your application out straight away! And beyond that, you need to make your application stand out, based on your legal experience and an interesting hobby that you engage in."
Alex undertook his pupillage in an in-house national solicitors' firm. It was a criminal pupillage and so Alex has mainly worked on criminal cases as well as regulatory work, but criminal based, be it companies or directors committing crimes. Alex spent the first six months of his year's pupillage following his supervisor around the crown court and in the second six months of his pupillage undertaking hearings and trials at the magistrate's court.
Memorable moment
Alex recently had a most memorable occasion in his legal career when he won his first Crown Court trial at Reading Crown Court. "It was a four -day trial. I was defending two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and running self-defence arguments. And after the four- day trial was over; the jury came back in two and half hours and acquitted the defendant. It was very satisfying moment to think that I was only studying law at BNU five years ago, participating in moots and here I am, as a qualified barrister sitting in court, witnessing the jury acquitting my defendant based on the arguments I had put to the jury. It was very surreal."
Working as a Barrister is not a 9-5 job.
The fifth piece of advice given to students by Alex is that students need to understand that working as a barrister is not a 9-5 job. If you are given a case at 5pm and it is for a trial the following morning, you must start working on the case straight away. You certainly cannot leave it to the following morning.
Sixth piece of advice
Alex reminds law students that working as a barrister is a very responsible role especially in criminal law as you are dealing with the liberty of your client.
Alex said: "You are really in a high position of trust and responsibility. If you were to go and see your doctor and the doctor said this is the issue, and this is what you have to do, you will follow the doctor's advice.
It is similar situation working in criminal law as when you meet your client for the first time, you enunciate to the client the evidence for and against him or her. You advise the client as to what position they are in and then you advise them what they should do and what plea they should make.
The client is placing his trust in you, your legal knowledge as well as your advocacy skills, your ability to stand up in court to represent them and to provide them with the best possible defence. There are some people who have never been to court before and have been wrongly accused of a crime that they did not commit and you are the difference, not only between them not receiving a custodial sentence and their liberty being deprived, but even having a criminal record with the implication that this can have for their future livelihoods."
Final thoughts
"Being a barrister is a great vocation and I would advise all students with drive, determination and great advocacy skills who wish to become barristers, to go for it."
