Possibly the worst thing about trying to get a pupillage is constantly having to fill out application forms. Spring is application season. OLPAS (Online Pupillage Application System), which allows prospective pupils to apply to up to 12 different sets via one application form, closes on May 1. Deadlines for several major non-OLPAS chambers are looming for the end of next month.

At first glance, application forms look like unassuming little things that can be rushed off in half an hour. Of course the reality is depressingly different. Glamming up post-English Literature degree dead-end jobs takes an age. As does convincingly blending fact and fiction when charting extra-curricular achievements. And the whole thing is made considerably worse by the fact that it has to be done in a weird language that inexplicably forbids the use of subjects and any verb that is not an “action verb”. That no one seems to know what an action verb is really doesn’t help either. But I imagine even someone fluent in Application Formese would find it difficult to come up with a reasonable-sounding answer to the question, “Why do you want to become a barrister?”

It shouldn’t be that difficult: a few lines about liking public speaking, a bit about how you want to make a contribution to society, perhaps something about wanting to work with people from a range of different backgrounds. Then a couple of neat little real life examples to show you’re not just making it up. It’s just that I’ve never been able to do it without coming across as a self-aggrandizing, over earnest creep.

Overcome with frustration and self loathing I’m tempted to seize the keyboard and bang out: "I want to become a barrister because I've had a look at a range of other professions and, to be honest, mate, they don't look that great. Being a barrister seems a bit of a laugh by comparison."

But until there’s a sea change in chambers’ attitudes to taking on unstable world-weary cynics, I’m reduced to long evenings of re-phrasing sentences about my lifelong quest for social justice in a bid to make them less vomit-inducing – regularly becoming so tangled up in the process that I end up with statements so grammatically unsound that pupillage panels must assume I outsourced the section to Steve McClaren.

Similarly challenging is the part asking why you’ve chosen to apply to “our” chambers. Well, the answer to that is I’ve applied to the others as well. And the truth is I’d have applied for a pupillage at Pret-a-Manger if being a "Pret barista" for 12 months was recognised by the Bar Council. Unfortunately I fear such a response may be frowned upon – meaning tedious journeying through cyberspace in a quest to find some improbable titbit of information - recent classics include the heady attraction of one chambers’ award winning intranet system and the powerful draw of another’s exciting new parking facilities - that can be used as a front to conceal my scattergun approach to getting a job.

Finally there’s the painful proofreading process. The trauma of application form completion means the stakes of missing an error are far higher than normal. In the midst of the tension I’ve developed a strange, irrational practice of jumping from one page to the next, causing me to forget which sections I’ve checked. Anger at my ineptitude combines with a general sense of impatience to get the thing out of my life. Rapidly blind panic takes over. At which point, muttering expletives under my breath, I blusteringly attach the form to an email, and with an unusually violent jab of the mouse from my sweating finger: irreversible, error-strewn submission.

Quivering over the keyboard, I console myself with the fact that at least I’m not applying for a training contract. Friends at City firms tell horrible stories of gargantuan forms with obscure questions about their proudest moment, sections demanding to know their grades for things they were assured didn’t count, and essays on their voluntary service commitments. Surely there must be a better way to do this?

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