Advocacy practice
Timed criminal pupillage advocacy exercises: select what matters and make a disciplined submission.
Under pressure
Advocacy exercises are designed to reveal how you think under pressure. The panel may give you a short bundle or a few facts and allow only limited preparation time. Your task is to select what matters and make a disciplined submission.
The advocacy structure
Tell the tribunal what you seek; identify the legal test; apply the strongest facts; confront the principal weakness; explain why it does not defeat the application; finish with the precise order sought.
Order
Tell the tribunal what you seek.
Test
Identify the legal test.
Facts
Apply the strongest facts.
Difficulty
Confront the principal weakness.
Answer
Explain why it does not defeat the application.
Result
Finish with the precise order sought.
Exercise 01
Two minutes. Defence.
Scenario
Your 20-year-old client is charged with street robbery. He has one conviction for shoplifting, lives with his mother, has a college place and failed to attend court once two years ago. The prosecution opposes bail on failure-to-surrender and further-offending grounds.
Your task
Prepare a two-minute defence bail application. Identify the prosecution's strongest point rather than avoiding it.
What a panel is listening for
A clear application at the outset.
Recognition of the relevant risks.
Fact-specific answers to those risks.
Proportionate conditions rather than a shopping list.
A short, decisive conclusion.
Exercise 02
Three minutes. Do not minimise the offence.
Scenario
Your client, aged 32, has pleaded guilty at the first opportunity to an offence committed during a period of financial instability. There is relevant previous offending, but no convictions for four years. She has since obtained employment and repaid part of the loss.
Your task
Deliver a three-minute plea in mitigation. Do not minimise the offence. Explain how the mitigation affects sentence.
Exercise 03
Instead of writing twenty questions, identify three propositions you need the witness to accept. Build short, leading questions around each proposition. A pupillage panel is often more interested in your theory of the cross-examination than theatrical aggression.
First proposition
What must the witness accept for your case to stand?
Second proposition
What must the witness accept for your case to stand?
Third proposition
What must the witness accept for your case to stand?
The tribunal
Stop and answer the question. If the intervention exposes a weakness, acknowledge it and explain your response. Do not mechanically return to a memorised speech.
Advocacy is a conversation with the tribunal.
Avoid
Talking through the judge, or picking up a prepared script as if nothing was asked.
Digital Learning Edition
The full Digital Learning Edition contains 12 chapters, advocacy worksheets, ethics scenarios, sentencing and appeal exercises, 100 rapid-fire questions, mock panels and a 7-day revision plan. One-off payment — £49.
Digital Learning Edition
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Practise 25 realistic criminal pupillage interview questions and learn a structured method for motivation, legal, ethics and advocacy answers.
Free guidePrepare for pupillage ethics questions with realistic criminal Bar scenarios and a structured framework for professional conduct problems.
Free guideA focused criminal law revision guide for pupillage interviews, with issue-spotting exercises in robbery, self-defence, hearsay and evidence.
Free guideA framework for preparing criminal justice current-affairs questions, including backlog, jury trial, legal aid, sentencing, digital evidence and AI.
Educational use: This resource is for pupillage interview preparation, not legal advice. Candidates should verify current law, procedure, Sentencing Council guidance and BSB requirements from primary and official sources before interview.
