Friday 31 July is training contract application deadline day at most of the big firms. In a market where, according to a recent Sweet & Maxwell survey, there has been a 150% jump in the number of applications per training contract vacancy, prospective trainees will need all the luck they can get.

But it's not all bad news. After all, most law firms are at least still recruiting, with those responsible for graduate recruitment keen to emphasise that the 'two years in advance' model means that trainee recruitment is relatively detached from the present state of the economy.

Still, with more wannabe lawyers than ever – the increase is partly attributed to a rush of applicants away from harder-hit areas such as investment banking – it's inevitable that there'll be an inordinate amount of unsuccessful applicants kicking around at the end of the 2009 recruitment round.

The good – if not particularly consoling – news for prospective solicitors is that law firms are, in comparison to barristers' chambers, pretty good at dealing with those who they knock back. Simon Myerson QC, author of the blog Pupillage and how to get it, recently asked his readers to name and shame the chambers which had treated them shoddily during the pupillage application and interview process. The 50-plus subsequent responses confirmed that hell hath no fury like an applicant scorned, but also revealed some pretty sloppy practices among several respected sets that you just wouldn't get at a top law firm.

First of all, some chambers didn't even send out rejection letters to those not selected for interview – surely a common courtesy to someone who has just sacrificed several days navigating the labyrinths of your application form.

One of the posters responding to Myerson's call for information wrote: "Technically I'm still waiting to hear from Mitre Court. From last year…Well, you never know!"

The other thing a lot of chambers do badly – and law firms, to their credit, do well – is post-interview feedback.

Simon Pilcher, graduate recruitment partner at CMS Cameron McKenna, explains the system operated by his firm: "We send out a response within 48 hours telling applicants if they've been unsuccessful at interview. Then we telephone the applicant and let them know that we'd be happy to provide feedback. Most take up the offer."

Meanwhile, tales abound of chambers failing to respond to unsuccessful applicants' requests for advice on how they could have performed better.

"I requested feedback on my inevitable rejection, and was promised this three times. I still haven't received any," wrote one depressed-sounding poster on Myerson's blog.

Okay, law firms have much more collective resources to devote to graduate recruitment than barristers' chambers, and some of the posts on Myerson's blog have more than a dash of axe-grinding about them, but it does seem that the Bar is particularly bad at this stuff.

A swiftly-dispatched, beautifully worded rejection letter is not, of course, going to truly ease the pain of missing out on a job. But feedback on that tendency to drop interviewers' first names into your responses to their questions could make the difference between a life as a lawyer and a parallel existence as an estate agent.

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