Introducing The Diary, our feed and roundup of dates for your legal diary. We begin with key dates in September – which is a very busy time for all aspiring barristers.
This issue covers important dates and deadlines in September. October arrives in the next issue, on the first Thursday. Save the Diary to your calendar so that you never miss out on key events.
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The date that matters
Michaelmas term opens on Thursday 1 October and runs to Monday 21 December. That is the shape of your next twelve weeks. The Judges’ Service at Westminster Abbey traditionally marks the day.
Key Deadlines
All four Inns open Bar Course scholarship applications within four days of each other, and all four close on the same afternoon. If you are applying, that fortnight in September is the one to clear — and the closing date is the one to put in your phone now.
Lincoln’s Inn Pupillage Foundation Scheme closes
Monday 7 September, 10am · Free · Lincoln’s Inn members who have finished the Bar course and been unsuccessful in at least one pupillage application
The Scheme involves an application workshop, mock interviews and a mentor, with travel reimbursed. Before you apply, know that all four in-person sessions are compulsory: 16 November, 9 December, 15 February and 11 March. Questions to Anna McCole, pupillage@lincolnsinn.org.uk.
The Pupillage Gateway opens for the 2027 cycle
Monday 7 September · Free · Anyone intending to apply for pupillage
Accounts and academic history only at this stage. Vacancies appear on 23 November, applications open at 11am on 4 January and close at 11.59pm on 28 January, with no extensions and no amendments after. Offers all land on 7 May. Chambers must publish their adverts by 20 November, so the vacancy list is complete three days before you can see it.
Gray’s Inn Bar Course scholarships open
Friday 11 September · Closes 30 October, references 6 November
Full-time applicants must be starting in September 2027 or January 2028. You may apply to one Inn only, so choose before you start writing.
Lincoln’s Inn Bar Course scholarships open
Monday 14 September, 9am · Closes 3pm on 30 October
Both your applications and references must be in before you can submit, and an incomplete application cannot be submitted at all. Ask your referees in September, not October.
Middle Temple Bar Course scholarships open
Monday 14 September · Closes 3pm on 30 October, references 3pm on 20 November
Register your details first; the application form only opens after that.
Inner Temple Bar Course scholarships open
Monday 14 September · Closes 3pm on 30 October, references 6 November
Inner interviews every applicant — Leeds on 27 February, London on 6 and 13 March, results expected 9 April. Two references from people who have known you six months or more, family excluded.
COMBAR mentoring for under-represented groups closes
Friday 16 October · Free · From a group under-represented at the Commercial Bar
A mentor from a COMBAR set, one-to-one sessions, an application and interview workshop, a social in January and travel paid. Apply by email to MentoringURG@combar.com.
Bar Course scholarships close — all four Inns
Friday 30 October · All four Inns close today.
September, in order
The Northern Pupillage Fair
Saturday 5 September · 10am to 3pm · The Liner Hotel, Liverpool · Free, no cap
The only pupillage fair outside London this autumn, and open to anyone exploring the career — undergraduates, Bar course students, career changers, sixth formers. If the London fairs are a train fare too far, this is the one.
Thriving in your first years of practice
Thursday 10 September · 5.30pm to 8pm · London · First seven years of practice
The Bar Council on building strong barrister–solicitor relationships, and unusually it is open to junior solicitors as well as junior barristers, which is the entire point of the subject. The venue is published only as London, so confirm the address before you set off.
MTYBA — the pupil experience
Saturday 12 September · 6pm · Online · Middle Temple students and MTYBA members
Pupils on what the year is actually like. Book by 9am on the 11th. Not a qualifying session, which is rather in its favour — nobody is there for the credit.
The Fashion Law Edit — Fashion Futures: AI, IP and The Digital Wardrobe
Tuesday 15 September · 6pm to 9pm · Samsung KX, 1 Stable Street, N1C 4DQ
The pick of the month. It is the one event in the window that sits properly at the join between the law and the life around it, and it lands in the same week as London Fashion Week, which is not an accident.
Maitland Chambers — women considering the Bar
Wednesday 16 September · 11am to 1pm · Lincoln’s Inn · Women aged 16 and over · Free
A drop-in, so arrive when you can. It is in person near 7 Stone Buildings despite what some listings say, and you book by emailing pupillage@maitlandchambers.com with your name and where you are in your studies. First come, first served, and open to sixth formers, which very little else here is.
Inner Temple JBA quiz, and a panel worth the evening
Friday 18 September
The Junior Bar Association quiz at 6.30pm, £70 a table of eight or £10 on your own, food and drink included, booking closes on the 10th. Earlier the same evening, IFBM and Bridging the Bar run Taking Up Space Confidently in Legal Spaces That Weren’t Built for You at 6.15pm on Google Meet, free, with limited places.
Three introductory evenings
Tuesday 22 September · New Bar Course students
Middle Temple at 5.30pm in Hall, or 5.45pm online, worth one qualifying session point if you stay for all of it. Inner Temple at 5pm in the Lecture Theatre, one credit, smart casual, invitation only through qs@innertemple.org.uk. Gray’s Inn at 5.30pm in Hall, one credit, free, and dark suits.
Read this bit before you book. Gray’s Inn splits by geography: London and GDL students go on the 22nd, out-of-London students go to the day on the 26th. Inner Temple does the same, with out-of-London students on the 25th, and warns that double bookings will be cancelled. Middle Temple lets you attend one introductory event only, the evening on the 22nd or the day on the 26th. Book the wrong one and you will be unbooked.
Inner Temple and LGBTQ+ Society dinner
Wednesday 23 September · 7pm · Inner Temple · Members of all four Inns and their guests
Champagne and canapés, then a two-course dinner. Dietaries and cancellations by the 15th. Dress to impress or black tie.
MTYBA debate — should assisted dying be legal?
Friday 25 September · 5.30pm · Sherrard Room, Middle Temple · Students and MTYBA members
Worth going for the advocacy as much as the motion. Doors at 5, debate 5.30 to 6.30, networking until 7.30, business attire, and book by 9am on the 22nd. Inner Temple’s introductory event for out-of-London students runs the same evening at 5pm.
An important Saturday
Saturday 26 September
Middle Temple’s introductory day from 9.30am, two qualifying session points and a sandwich lunch. Gray’s Inn’s introductory day and moot workshop from 10.30am, for out-of-London students only, one credit and free. Inner Temple’s Michaelmas Skills Day in two sittings, 9am or 12pm, two credits — advocacy workshops plus a legal research lecture from the librarians, book or cancel by the 18th.
Becoming a Barrister — the Joint Inns Insight session
Monday 28 September · 6pm to 8pm · Online · Free · No membership needed
The most useful evening on this list if you are at the stage of working out whether any of this is for you. All four Inns in one session: scholarships at 6, a panel at 6.15, an hour of questions from 7. Open to university students, graduates and career changers, and it costs nothing. There is an in-person version in London on 21 October.
Two more on the 28th
Monday 28 September
Junior TECBAR on how to succeed at the junior Bar, 12.30 to 1.30 with registration from 12.15 — in person at Keating Chambers with lunch, despite being filed as a webinar, and open to TECBAR members only. Then Middle Temple’s Treasurer’s Lecture with Professor Johanne Delahunty KC at 5.30pm, which is billed as a lecture but is in fact a panel, We Set the Bar, open to all four Inns and their guests.
Elsewhere in Issue 001: a perfect weekend in Madrid, where to take a client to dinner, twelve things for the return, and the lawyer making documentaries about music.
