Starter's orders part 1

This week a fly on the wall documentary starts following aspiring barristers as they try to crack in to the legal world. Most are destined to fail. Time will tell whether and to what extent any of those selected for the purpose of the documentary actually gain pupillage or get into chambers, and if they do whether they will stay at the Bar and make a go of it. It would also be interesting to see how much of a glimpse into the realities of legal life that this gives.

Practice as a barrister consists of endless number of hurdles to overcome. Acquiring work, acquiring work of the right type and the right level, constantly striving to improve, dealing with difficult judges, colleagues, clients, cases. However there are two hurdles which are always the biggest you have to overcome in your professional life. Getting pupillage, the means of training without which you can never become a barrister, and then getting a tenancy by a permanent place in chambers so that your career can start. None of the other hurdles ever seem as big as those two.

In the days when the then world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson was regarded as unbeatable and Evander Holyfield (who later went on to beat him) was moving up from cruiserweight to heavyweight, one boxing commentator said the problem that Holyfield had was that he could prove to be the second best heavyweight in history and still not beat Mike Tyson. Whilst that assessment seems ludicrous now, it had an important kernel of truth. Just as only one person in any university can get the top mark in a particular subject, so if there is only one place available for pupilage in a particular chambers, only one person can get it. That will be whoever is the outstanding performer on that day. You can be an outstanding performer, and still be marginally pipped by someone else.

Nor are these easy matters to judge. I remember once being part of the selection process for pupils where there were two outstanding candidates, both female. Sadly there was only one place available. It came down to a vote which went 9-7 in favour of one of the candidates (not the one I voted for). I have no doubt that with a different composition of the panel such a close vote could easily have gone the other way. Whilst I thought that both candidates were excellent, I thought that the one I voted for was clearly better than the other (although accepted that it was going to be desperately unfair on either of them not to get the place). I do not know what happened to the unsuccessful candidate and whether she found anywhere else. Sometimes when you have set your heart on a particular place failure can hit you very hard. Ironically sometimes candidates who have performed brilliantly in interview can find it more of a setback if they lose because psychologically they are wondering what on earth they have to do to succeed.

Next week we shall look at some of the different hurdles people have had to overcome to get and keep pupillage and tenancies.