Once you have completed the Academic Stage of Bar Training and you have enrolled on a Bar Vocational Training Course, what can you expect?

You should expect this stage of training to be very different from your experience of studying law either at undergraduate level or on the GDL. Even if you have studied law at postgraduate level, the Vocational Stage of Bar Training will introduce you to many new skills. It is useful to think of the Vocational Stage as the bridge between academic study and practical work experience in pupillage or work-based learning.

• Bar Training Course Overview
• Course content and assessment
• Teaching and Learning approach
• Class sizes
• Course location
• Bar Training Course results

Bar Training Course Overview

First of all, you should expect this stage of training to be very different from your experience of studying law either at undergraduate level or on the GDL. Even if you have studied law at postgraduate level, the Vocational Stage of Bar training will introduce you to many new skills. It is useful to think of the Vocational Stage as the bridge between academic study and practical work experience in pupillage or work-based learning.

You will be learning the procedural and practical aspects of civil litigation, alternative dispute resolution and criminal litigation, evidence and sentencing. You will learn the fundamental skills of advocacy, from making submissions to a judge to handling witnesses in examination-in-chief and cross-examination.

You will be introduced to the skills utilised in conducting effective conferences with clients, to how to draft pleadings or statements of case and how to write legal opinions. You will be introduced to Professional Ethics, including the core duties of barristers to the court and to clients.

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Course content and assessment

When looking at Bar training courses on the websites of individual course providers, you could be forgiven for thinking they all look alike. The principal reason for this is that all Bar Training Courses have to meet certain minimum curriculum requirements set by the BSB.

As a starting point, all Bar Training Courses follow the BSB Curriculum and Assessment Strategy which sets out these fundamental course and assessment requirements. In addition, as you move through your Bar Training Course and, after this, into pupillage or work-based learning, the Professional Statement for Barristers describes the knowledge, skills and attributes that you are expected to have on ‘day one’ of practice.  As such, the Professional Statement describes what you are seeking to achieve and the Curriculum and Assessment Strategy sets out the method of achievement.

Each Bar training course will therefore teach you:

• Civil Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Criminal Litigation, Evidence and Sentencing
• Advocacy (submissions)
• Advocacy (examination-in-chief)
• Advocacy (cross-examination)
• Conference skills
• Drafting
• Opinion Writing & Legal Research
• Professional Ethics

Centralised assessments

Civil Litigation/Alternative Dispute Resolution and Criminal Litigation, Evidence and Sentencing are subjects in which the assessments are set and marked by the Bar Standards Board. For this reason, they are known as centralised assessments or centrally-set assessments and they are assessed by multiple choice/single best answer. The assessments in all other subjects are set and marked by individual course providers; the integrity of these assessments and their marking processes are overseen by a Bar Standards Board external examiner.

Professional Ethics

You may have noticed that Professional Ethics is taught and assessed both during the Bar Course and again during pupillage. This is now a Bar Standards Board requirement. It means that professional ethics during your Bar training course is at a foundation level, with a more detailed approach adopted during pupillage.

Additional information

For more information on course content and assessment, please look at the BSB Curriculum and Assessment Strategy (CAS). Bear in mind that the CAS contains the minimum requirements which each course provider must follow, but individual providers can add to this curriculum if they choose to do so. For example, the ICCA ensures that students experience both civil and criminal mock trials, that they learn additional skills through modules dealing with vulnerable witnesses and with children in conflict with the law, as well as introducing students to advocates from a range of specialist practice areas.

It is worth pointing out to any prospective Bar Course student that training to become a barrister is challenging. Bar training courses are volume-heavy and time-consuming. You will need to be effective in managing your time to stay on top of the workload. As an example of the challenging nature of the course, see Bar Training Course Results for the number of students that pass and fail their Bar Standards Board assessments.

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Teaching and learning approach

Each course provider may adopt different methods of teaching. For example, some courses follow a traditional pattern of face-to-face teaching from September to June. By contrast, the ICCA breaks its Bar Course into two distinct parts:

• Part One you study for the BSB centralised assessments Civil Litigation/ADR and criminal litigation, evidence and sentencing through interactive online study. When you have successfully completed Part One and have these assessments behind you, you then move on.
• Part Two involves face-to-face teaching at the Inns of Court – here you will learn the skills subjects of advocacy, conference skills, drafting and opinion writing. You will also complete your Professional Ethics course online in a manner which will be familiar to you from Part One. Part Two commences in either September or March and lasts for 17 weeks (March start) or 19 weeks (September start).

A two-part course approach allows for flexibility and affordability – students complete Part One following the guided pathway of approximately 14 weeks, or for those with caring or work responsibilities they may take a longer period and take the assessments when they are ready.

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Class sizes

Class sizes will vary depending on the course provider and you should feel free to check this when you make your application. The ICCA, for example, believes in focussed teaching in small groups – for this reason, on Part Two, advocacy is taught in groups of 4 (examination-in-chief and cross-examination) or in double-length sessions with 6 students (submissions advocacy); conference is taught in double-length sessions with 6 students and Drafting and Opinion Writing in groups of up to 12.

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Course Location

Where a course provider is located geographically may be important to you. The ICCA two-part model allows for students to study Part One at any time and from any location, with Part Two being based in London within the Inns of Court. Other Bar Training Course providers are based throughout England & Wales, some of which have a London base as well as regional locations.

The BSB website contains a downloadable list of all Bar Course training providers (AETOS), including locations.

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Bar Training Course Results

BSB Assessment Success

When considering pass rates, the BSB publish the results of students across all Bar training course providers in the BSB civil and criminal litigation centrally set assessments.

The Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA) is proud to be leading the field by some considerable distance, with an exceptional pass rate across all sittings between December 2020 to April 2023.

“The ICCA has the highest average passing rate across both Litigation subjects and all sittings to date …
The ICCA is, thus far, some way ahead of the other AETO centres in terms of cohort performance.”

BSB Central Examinations Board Chair’s Report 6 July 2023 (page 46)

Pupillage Success

Of course, assessment results are only one part of the story concerning student outcomes. Many students will be hoping to secure pupillage or work-based learning opportunities.

In this regard, 97% of the ICCA 2021 graduating cohort have secured pupillage.

As previously mentioned, students have 5 years following successful completion of their Bar training course to secure pupillage.

Next: What does it cost to train for the Bar and is there any funding available? >

Stage 3 The Professional Stage >

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