Self Assessment
This is the section of the application that you will spend the most time completing. Here we ask you to assess yourself against the judicial skills and qualities required for the role.
The skills and qualities for all judicial roles can be found on our What We're Looking For page.
You should give specific examples of where and how you have demonstrated the skills relevant to the office. Before beginning this section, you should:
- Read the skills and qualities for the post carefully to understand what you need to demonstrate.
- Consider how your own experience relates to or is transferable to the skills and qualities specified.
- Reflect on roles, tasks and situations in which you demonstrated those skills and qualities.
- Select specific examples that best demonstrate the skills and qualities.
The strongest self-assessments demonstrate breadth, providing between one and three examples within each competency area showing clearly how you approached each situation and achieved a successful outcome.
Using the STAR Model
Each individual example should follow a clear structure. The following structure may assist:
Stage | Details | % of answer |
Situation | Briefly outline the situation - to give context. | 10% |
Task | State what you were trying to achieve. | 10% |
Action | What action did you take? Explain what you did, how you did it and why you did it. What did you actually do? What was your contribution and role? | 60% |
Result | Describe the result. What happened and what did you learn? Did you achieve what you set out to do? What difficulties and challenges did you face? Did you have to adapt to achieve your goal? | 20% |
Your response is limited to 300 words per criterion.
Further Tips
· Ensure the focus is on your actions in a specific scenario.
· Where possible, give different examples for each criterion in the application form.
· Use your strongest examples in your application, but keep a note of others that are relevant as you may wish to use these at interview if invited.
What to Avoid
· Avoid using hyperlinks, as these will be disregarded by the panel.
· Avoid simply listing cases you dealt with in the past. The panel needs enough information to understand the impact of your actions and may not be familiar with specific cases.
· Avoid relying on highly generalised descriptions of work carried out.
· Avoid giving assertive or aspirational statements.
· Avoid merely refering to positions held, without giving specific examples.
Legal Knowledge, Skills and Competence
Each judicial office has slightly different requirements for the legal knowledge, skills and competence criteria. Further details will be provided in the Job Specific Guidance Notes for applicants.
Judicial and Personal Qualities
We regard merit as being wider than the knowledge of the law. The possession of the personal and judicial qualities set out plays an important part in our consideration of applications. You should explain why you possess those qualities and give specific examples.
Examples may be drawn from your working life and other aspects of your life. The panel looks in particular for evidence that applicants will be capable of exercising sound judgment in a responsible way on the bench. You should provide evidence of how difficult situations were tackled, judgments made, discretion exercised and what was achieved.