26 May 2020

Further to its announcement on 13 May that the August centralised assessments for the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) and Bar Transfer Test (BTT) can be sat remotely, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) has today announced that the Professional Ethics centralised assessment will be held on 11 and 12 August 2020 as well as the 13 and 14 August dates previously announced and that the Civil Litigation and Criminal Litigation results will be made available in early October, a month earlier than previously announced.   

The extended dates for students to sit the Professional Ethics assessment will ensure that sufficient slots within the Pearson VUE testing system are available for students to take their exams. Students will be allocated a precise day to take their exams in the coming weeks and there will be some flexibility to take account of differing time zones. Measures will be in place to ensure there is no possibility of collusion between students sitting the exams on different dates.

The dates of the other centralised assessments remain unchanged: 17 and 18 August for Civil Litigation, and 20 and 21 August for Criminal Litigation.

Civil and Criminal Litigation results will now also be made available to students via their providers in early October. This is a month earlier than previously announced. This means anyone due to start a pupillage in October should only be awaiting their Professional Ethics result – which will be made available in early November - by the time they start their pupillage. As final overall BPTC results will only be issued once all results are confirmed in November, the BSB has also waived the usual requirement that only those who have been confirmed as having successfully passed a BPTC may start the non-practising period of pupillage.

More information about the August centralised assessments is available in a series of FAQs on the BSB website. Students will receive instructions and detailed guidance for sitting the exams from their providers as soon as the remaining details have been finalised.

ENDS

Notes to editors

About the Bar Standards Board

Our mission is to regulate barristers and specialised legal services businesses in England and Wales in the public interest. For more information about what we do visit: http://bit.ly/1gwui8t

Contact: For all media enquiries call: 020 7611 4691 or email [email protected].

More on