AU in conversation with: Rehab Jaffer
What kind of studies and work did you undertake to prepare to be a barrister?
“I would say that whilst my studies, employment, and voluntary roles have prepared me for the role of a barrister, my reason for pursuing each has always been to experience something new or develop from it in some way – whether that is academically, or from a personal angle. Being a barrister requires so many transferable skills that I don’t believe there is necessarily a one-size-fits-all checklist to getting there.
I graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2015 with an LLB (Hons). During my undergraduate degree I volunteered with the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, ChildLine, and a number of local NGOs. I also worked part-time for my university’s outreach department encouraging disadvantaged youths to pursue higher education, which was quite an advocacy-heavy role. After taking a one-year graduate position in that outreach department assisting on a scholarship project – during which I interned remotely at the UN-ICTY and UN-MICT – I then undertook a master’s in public international at Leiden University from 2016-2017. During my LLM, I represented Leiden in the Telders International Law moot court competition at the ICJ, and in Model UN conferences at both Hamburg and Harvard universities.
Following my LLM, I completed an internship at EHRAC before returning home to Liverpool where I worked as a paralegal before pursuing the Bar course. I was fortunate enough to get a few scholarships for the course, which I completed in 2019. During the Bar course I also volunteered for a number of NGOs and interviewed for pupillage. I got an offer for pupillage in April and I then interviewed for my judicial assistant position in roughly the same week.
Due to the pandemic, my pupillage was deferred for 6 months. During that time, I received an extension of my position at the Court of Appeal, and then I began work as a paralegal for the Infected Blood Inquiry. I undertook some consultancy work for AU on international projects during both of those positions. Clearly, time management is one of those transferrable skills I picked up in preparation for the role of a barrister.”
What did you learn from working at the ICTY, one of your first legal work experiences?
“In addition to learning about international criminal law in practice, this role taught me that people are not as scary as you allow yourself to believe. By the time I had this position, I had already worked and volunteered with so many types of people, but there was still an element of fear or intimidation when it came to speaking to senior lawyers. However, all of these incredibly passionate and aspirational people, the amazing academics and the QCs, are at the end of the day, still people. It also taught me that if you don’t ask you don’t get, especially as someone with hardly any legal connections. Once you get past the concept of “oh, I don’t know anyone” and see professionals as people who are willing to listen, then it is a lot easier to talk to lawyers in a way that is not necessarily about this vague concept of ‘networking’ that they hint at in university. Having this experience on my CV definitely made other internships, and my LLM, possible – and it was a talking point in many of my pupillage interviews.”
What is your advice to aspiring barristers?
“I’d say instead of treating everything like a checkbox exercise for the CV, they should pursue all of the things that they are interested in first. They should talk to as many professionals in their chosen industry as possible, and really get to know what the role consists of, instead of having aspirational targets only. I think it is important to love what you’re doing (at least most of the time) and understand that becoming a barrister is a journey, not an end-goal.
I believe that everything you learn and the skills you pick up during paralegal roles, volunteering, and particularly non-legal employment, are all skills you will eventually need as a barrister – as well as in life generally. In all of those positions you talk to people, learn more about their lives and get comfortable with different levels of responsibility; as a barrister you have to be the voice of many different types of people, which means in some respects you should have the skills to understand where they are coming from, even if you don’t necessarily agree with it. It makes the most sense to apply when you feel ready for the role and the responsibilities that come with it.
The whole pupillage application process also takes a lot of time and experience, as it is essentially a form of written advocacy, followed by oral examination. People should not feel discouraged when they are unsuccessful, particularly when applying straight out of university, because even the disappointments often teach you something valuable and may even redirect you towards different experiences in life.”
What do you hope to achieve in the future?
“At the moment I’m definitely living day by day. I’m allowing myself to experience whatever comes along. Right now I’m trying to get to grips with pupillage starting and working across many different practice areas.
Mostly, I just want what I do to matter. Especially in this area of law, where even if you help one person then that changes one person’s life, and that in itself is enough. A lot of the time, when reading particularly daunting cases, you can feel like the world is an awful place, but if you can make it better – even for just one person – you feel like you have contributed something beneficial.”
How do you make people care about human rights?
“I think those who might say they don’t care about human rights, simply don’t know what human rights are. There is no reason individuals shouldn’t care about making sure they are protected from the state going outside of its powers. That means the best way to make people care about human rights, is to teach them what human rights are and how they benefit from them every day. This can be done by talking to family and friends about what they are, or by running school workshops with human rights practitioners and/or academics. I’ve tried to do this by speaking at my younger brothers’ secondary schools to better inform young people about their rights. Ensuring that people are informed will make them a lot less willing to allow their human rights to be taken from them.”
Is law the same as justice?
“I think law is a mechanism with which one can achieve justice, but it is just one mechanism. The law can be used to achieve either just or unjust outcomes, and this is why in addition to law enforcement, we have NGOs and protests that demand change – all of which are arguably mechanisms for justice. What we consider to be morally just often changes or develops over time, so it is wholly possible for the letter of the law to no longer achieve justice.”