The Numbers Game

The Chairman of the Bar, Geoffrey Voss QC is keen to ensure that the Bar is an elite of ability only, and appeals as a potential career to people from all social and ethnic backgrounds. That is a laudable and correct stance which few if any would disagree with. The difficult part comes in deciding what can be done to ensure that that occurs.

Lord Neuberger

Presently there is a Bar Council committee, chaired by Lord Neuberger, considering these matters. This month it has produced an interim report. One possible proposal is that the numbers of students taking the Bar Vocational Course (BVC) should be limited.

The rationale is that the BVC course is expensive, and that anything which reduces the numbers will probably be for the benefit of those taking the course in the first place. Of course one of the difficulties would be how you decide who takes the course. One suggestion is aptitude tests, but I'm not sure how accurate those are likely to be in predicting the mix of skills necessary to prosper as a barrister. Nor that that mix of skills is necessarily uniform given the different types of practice that people undertake.

A levels

Previous attempts at "levelling the playing field" do not inspire huge confidence. At one stage it was thought that since A-levels were roughly comparable, that to decide on the basis of A-level grades was a "blind" means of selection which would be fair. Needless to say it was fatally flawed. For example, the person who had taken Oxbridge entrance on a fourth term basis and therefore only needed to get to grade E A-levels was unlikely to bust a gut to get better results or have results which reflected ability. I know of one such case who went on to get a double first in law from Oxford, only to be refused a place at the BVC on the ground that his A-levels were not good enough. (Faced with a legal challenge on the grounds of irrationality, he was allowed in).

Pupillage necessary?

This is also linked to the rationale of whether people should be allowed to call themselves a barrister if they had not undertaken pupillage. (There was a time when such people could get pupillage, when pupillage was not funded. Now they will not. No Chambers would fund pupils who have no intention of staying, or who would be unlikely to be kept even if they wanted to stay.). I am firmly of the view that they should be. Many will go to work in niche sectors as employed barristers. Some will return to the self-employed Bar. For example, a person who has acquired extensive experience in a particular area (say financial services) will be perhaps a more attractive acquisition for a Chambers after eight years experience than they would have been earlier. Often the very people who might take this route are people from a less privileged background.

International Links

More importantly many people undertake the BVC course from Commonwealth countries and then return to be lawyers there. Their presence and the links this fosters benefits both them and their Bars, and us and the Bar here. At a time when the flow of capital and services is becoming truly international, the last thing that we should be looking to do is anything which might affect the strength of the international links of the Bar.

Lies and statistics

One should also be careful how statistics are used. One concern raised is the proportion of barristers who went to Oxbridge. However that is not necessarily a guide as to social class. As someone born in a 2 up 2 down in Salford in a working-class family, but who became a first generation university student and won a scholarship to Cambridge, do I automatically count as part of a privileged elite for having gone to Oxbridge? Whilst having enormous personal sympathy for the idea that we have to do everything possible to facilitate entry by, and encourage aspirations from, all sections of the population, we must be careful that in so doing we do not fall into a trap of stereotyping.

Careers Talks

By far the most important way of encouraging the widest mix of talented entrants is to make people realise that the Bar can be for them. Perception is everything. People in every secondary school should have access to barristers coming to careers talks to explain why the Bar is an inclusive meritocracy which is only interested in what you are capable of producing, not your class, your ethnicity, your sex or your orientation. Just how good you can be at the job.

Ultimately it is about getting a persuasive message across. If anybody should be good at that, should be the Bar. That is a lot more important than numbers restrictions, which are unlikely to achieve their desired effect, but which risk collateral damage of the sorts referred to.

Michael J. Booth QC