So many law students at City want to become barristers, yet comparatively few have taken the easy first step of joining one of the four Inns of Court that their later profession requires membership of. This is perplexing. Lincoln’s Inn, Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn are all geared up to support their student members and future barristers; so why not take advantage of this?

Qualifying sessions

Joining an Inn as a student, especially during the third year of an undergraduate law degree or during the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL), provides the best opportunity to get a head start on the Bar’s mandatory qualifying sessions and to make the most of the wealth of resources available. To be ‘called’ to the Bar, each student must have passed not only the Bar Course, but also completed ten qualifying sessions at one of the four historic Inns of Court.

Certainly, at Lincoln’s, there are no limitations on completing at least eight of one’s ten qualifying sessions (QSs) whilst being a GDL student. All must attend a session on each of the five core areas: Legal Knowledge, Justice and the Rule of Law; Preparation for Pupillage, Career Development and Wellbeing; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion; Advocacy Skills; and Ethics, Standards and Values. Two of the ten QSs must be ‘interactive’ in-person workshops, with the Ethics and Advocacy workshop being especially useful for Bar Course students.

Getting a head start on these QSs whilst studying for the GDL, or undergraduate law, lets you meet your peers from other universities as well as practicing barristers. The opportunities for learning advocacy skills, receiving advice, or simply getting a few drinks, is one that more students should take up.

Scholarships

The Inns of Court also offer scholarships for both the GDL and the Bar Course. Successful applicants get their names published in The Times newspaper. As well as providing a source of funding for your studies, they also mark out applications for pupillage, mini-pupillage, and the Bar Course. Applications can only be made to one Inn, and each has different assessment methods and criteria, though all roughly follow a paper review of applications followed by an interview. There are hundreds of scholarships available for the Bar Course, and over a hundred between the Inns for the GDL. Most are means-tested, so they recognise merit as well as individual financial need. Here are the links to scholarship info at each of the Inns:

• Grays Inn
• Inner Temple
• Middle Temple
• Lincoln’s Inn

Workshops, clubs and competitions

Within each Inn, there are also a variety of advocacy workshops and groups, from debating and mooting clubs that operate fortnightly to assessed debating competitions, essay prizes, and even the privilege of being chosen to debate at a ‘debate dinner’ with students and other barristers in one of the great halls of the Inns.

Lectures and dinners

Lectures and dinners are aplenty, with Lincoln’s Inn hosting the Black Books Society lectures on the history of law and the Inn, as well as the Denning Society events for scholars, both past and present. The other Inns have their own societies of varying types. Special anniversary events at the Inns are usually paired with a formal dinner or drinks reception (often both), which provides a further opportunity to meet practicing barristers, from juniors to silks.

Nourishment of all types

The final benefit of memberships come with the access to the halls for lunches each weekday, to the libraries, and to the bars. Student members of any Inn can dine in each of the four halls, use any of the libraries, and take friends and families to the bars.

There really is nothing to lose by applying to join the Inns of Court. Each and every aspiring barrister will have to join one eventually to be called to the Bar, so why not join now?

Henry Townsend is a candidate for the Graduate Diploma in Law, where he holds an Academic Scholarship from The City Law School and a Lord Haldane Scholar from The Honourable Society of Lincon’s Inn. He intends to practice at the commercial and public Bar. Previously, he was a Parliamentary Assistant to two Cabinet Ministers and a senior backbench M.P., after taking a First with Distinction in BA (Hons) History from the University of York and an MSt in British and European History, 1700-1850, from the University of Oxford.