The Bar Council may limit the number of places available on the Bar Vocational Course (BVC) and force course providers to reveal students’ chances of gaining a pupillage as part of a shake-up of the profession’s recruitment rules.
The proposals currently being considered by Lord Neuberger’s working party, which is looking into access and diversity at the Bar, were unveiled in an interim report issued today (5 April).
Proposals include limiting BVC course places, reintroducing unfunded pupillages and requiring course providers to publish the number of pupillages and tenancies their graduates obtained for the previous five years.
The group will also consider controversial measures such as compulsory competency tests and a requirement for students to achieve a 2:1 degree as a means of restricting the number of students on the BVC.
Neuberger told Legal Week he believed the reforms could widen the profession’s diversity, commenting: “People who are less privileged could do less well in competency tests as they may not have achieved their educational potential. However, it may be possible to design a test that would overcome this.”
The Bar Council is attempting to resolve the problem posed by the fact that a growing number of BVC students are missing out on pupillages. Recent research showed there are only 550 pupillages available for the 1,800 people who pass the BVC each year. Many of the students also face debts of more than £20,000.
Chambers may now have to reveal whether a student has obtained a pupillage before they have to commit to the BVC. The working party also suggested the introduction of online BVC courses in conjunction with Open University-type distance learning.
The working party is now launching a consultation on the proposals. Responses are due by 31 May, with the group set to report its findings by the end of the year.
The proposals have received a mixed reaction. Old Square Chambers senior clerk John Taylor said: “A 2:1 seems like a fair benchmark.” However, one senior member of a law school said: “If you reduce BVC places, you are going to cut down the prospects of diversity.”
Talkback: Will any of these proposals work? Click here to have your say.
I did the BVC in 2000 and did pupillage the following year. It was always made perfectly clear to me before I started that getting pupillage was likely to be an uphill battle. I was given the statistics on many occasions. I do not see how anyone begins the course without knowing the chances are slim. I also do not know how people who have a 2:2 from a second-rate university do not understand that it is going to be even more of an uphill struggle than for those with an Oxbridge starred first. Perhaps what needs to be made clear is not that there are 550 pupillages for 1,800 BVC graduates, but rather the strength of academic competition from other students in the chase for pupillage.
I think the best solution is for chambers to recruit in advance of the BVC. Then others who want to take a very big chance, or who want to complete the BVC before pursuing other careers, will know exactly where they stand.
I totally agree with the above. Chambers should recruit in advance and then people will know whether to take the enormous risk of commencing the BVC without a place. Also, I think the benchmark of at least a 2:1 degree is an excellent idea, as people with a lesser classification will find it almost impossible to find a pupillage.
I totally disagree with the comments posted above.
The vast majority of individuals who are from diverse backgrounds do not have the opportunity to attend universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. However, this does not mean that they are lacking in ability. It is precisely the attitude that defines you on the basis of where you come from and the school that you attend that leads individuals to believe that they will not have a fair chance of succeeding and will be silently prejudiced as they do not not conform to the norm.
If the Bar aims to be diverse they must recognise that recruiting individuals from the same institutions will ultimately yield the same results. A profession that is viewed by others as elitist and unaccessible to those whose personal circumstances are different.
It is paramount that those who enter the profession are highly intellectual, but a piece of paper stating what degree you earned is not representative of an individual's capability. A diverse Bar would embody diverse skills which do not arise purely from academic achievements but rather from a mixture of academic ability with the personal attributes that make a good barrister,not just on paper but in person.
Just to clarify, i'm not stating that people should only be selected from specific institutions, merely that they have demonstrated that they can achieve a high degree classification at their chosen institution. People with a 2:2 from anywhere are going to struggle, and therefore it isn't fair to let them accumulate over £20,000 in debt. Also, allowing people to have their pupillage place beforehand can only be a good thing, so that people from underpriviliged backgrounds will have a guarantee that they will be able repay the necessary evil of debt, whilst also ensuring anyone who enters the profession does so with their prospects and options clearly outlined.
I was pleased to read that the Bar's chairman, Geoffrey Vos QC, is intending to make the profession much more "accessible to the most able candidates from any background ... race, gender or socio-economic group" - which has been supported, in principle, by Lord Neuberger’s interim report. As a mature undergraduate law student (I am considering a career at the commercial Bar, probably like many other individualistic characters) and I am already aware that there is already a significant competition for places on the BVC. In December 2003 Bar Council ifigures revealed that there were nearly 2,500 graduate candidates who applied for just over 1,480 places at Bar school (all providers). If the availability of pupillages is even more constricted, this is extremely persistent, so is capping of BVC places really the solution that delivers equality – and a level playing field?
One school of thought could argue that this method of control of admissions of BVC places will ensure that high-calibre entrants are attracted to the profession from all jurisdictions. However, on the other side of the argument, artificial capping might discourage and/or destabilise recruitment from a wide socio-economic pool, in particular, lower socio-economic or international groups.
Although financial assistance is now becoming more widely available in terms of professional studies loans, for the BVC - which is a step in the right direction - the reality is that prospective and actual junior barristers’ at the criminal Bar will have to incur an ever-increasing mountain of debt to realise their dreams. (Who really wants to carry an overdraft for 20 years?)
Capping of BVC places has the possibility of creating a two-tier Bar, endangering its integrity and threatening impartiality.
Of course, you do not have to start a career as a barrister, straight from university. Individuals have started their initial careers in different working environments (such as the police force, teaching, social workers, commercial fields and government departments), who have changed professions successfully because they have technical knowledge and skills that are transferable. But those contemplating the Bar as a first career from lower socio-economic or international groups could face anti-competitive behaviour, although it is highly contested. BVC places always become quickly filled with high-calibre entrants in the first instance. This has always happened, nd this will continue to be the case.
We need to be honest with ourselves. Capping of BVC places will be harmful and any future reform agenda must adopt a focus that reflects the realities of the global market in which the Bar now operates.
Both ways might work in the reverse, contrary to Vos' rigorously defended vision and the new focus of Lord Neuberger’s future report. The expansion of chambers’ has not been as dramatic as that of law firms. Could this be inversely proportional to the expansion of law firms and their members’ whereby some have either initially trained as barristers, then re-qualified, now having almost equal audience rights as barristers, keeping more of their clients’ money in-house?
Economically, I disagree with Lord Neuberger’s comments that they did not believe that a move to limit numbers would be deemed “anti-competitive”. Capping of BVC places will reduce productivity gains, which are increasingly dependent on the capacity of the domestic and international markets to support the development of new chambers as commercial enterprises, investment in skills and knowledge (pupillages), foster legal innovation (for which the Bar of England and Wales has a strong tradition) and entrepreneurship.
I applaud Lord Neuberger and his committee for trying to improve diversity in the profession, but what he is suggesting smacks of social engineering and positive discrimination. Yes, places on the BVC should be limited and schoolchildren should be given work experience opportunities at the Bar (although I question why barristers should have to give up further time to work experience students gratis), but I do not agree that chambers should go back to offering unfunded pupillages and pupils "get a job in a different kind of bar" as Lord Neuberger rather patronisingly suggests.
In my experience as a pupil, it is not possible to attend to the requirements of pupiillage whilst holding down another job. Nor do I consider that the bar should be funding loans to prospective pupils - why should the profession pay for that?
The answer is for the Government to offer grants for the BVC, rather than to encourage students to incur even more debt. The laws of supply and demand should operate, as with the solicitors' profession. Again, there is anti-Oxbridge bias coming out, which is entirely unfair. Oxford and Cambridge have taken great strides to open up to a whole range of people from different backgrounds and I would say that Lord Neuberger is simply out of touch with modern Oxbridge. To discriminate against the top universities, which take the best students regardless of background, is unfair.
I would like to show my appreciation for 'Lee' above, in particular for his incredible ability to write 600 words on the subject of the Bar without actually saying anything. Look at him go! He goes on and on and on, and never once does he say anything without immediately contradicting it!
Lee, you should be a barrister!
I agree completely with the comments that a 2.1 is a fair benchmark to set for applicants to the Bar as the chances of others getting a pupillage are so slim as to make a burden of £20,000 debt unfair. This standard would not limit places to those from 'elitist' institutions at all, as admission to Oxford is now based on academic ability, not family connections! As someone who comes from a very 'diverse' background and who read law at Oxford, I find such remarks mystifying as it offers more funding to its poorer students than any other institution.
You all clamour at the door to the Bar - and if by the time you make your choice of BVC or LPC you don't know the reality of the stats of getting a place on BVC, then a pupillage and then a tenancy, you really should not be thinking of being a barrister.
These days I am of the mind that it really doesn't matter whether you do BVC or the LPC - you can still practise at the Bar after the LPC.
In fact, this is the best way forward these days, in my mind - akin to the Australian system. You qualify as a solicitor first and then go to the bar. At least you have a fall-back if you feel the bar is not for you. You will be financially better off also.
Work at the Bar is a drying up... especially criminal. We will see that solicitors will do all magistrates work in-house. The criminal bar is looking for ways around this, such as direct access. Trust me, the financial rewards at the criminal bar are little or none.
Aged debt is worrying for young barristers - over £15K in the first year - so you can imagine how one struggles with a £20k loan.
If you are passionate to be at the Bar and about law, then you will make it - a struggle perhaps, but it will be worth it. But if you are doing it for the glory alone, forget it - you will not make a good barrister and you will hate it. Do the LPC and be a solicitor advocate.
I made it with all the odds against me - I was passionate about the law and loved my pupillage and practice. But after two years in full practice, I now question the Bar and where it is going. The quality of work given to young barristers is horrific. I feel horrid after all my struggles and am now considering leaving the Bar and walking into private practice or going in-house for satisfaction and security.
So take my warning: if you are serious about life at the Bar, look at what you will be thinking after having made it and knowing that your work will not live up to your expectations. It will not matter what chambers you are in; you will be back in the running of which law firm to get into.
I would like to say the following - I have a 2:2 from a so-called 'second rate' university and upon leaving the BVC with a Very Competent I gained a pupillage and am now enjoying my time in court. To block people because of their classifications is unfair - the Bar Council should remove this absurd wage cap and allow people to undertake pupillage on either a paid or unpaid basis - after all, there are a number of banks who would like happily offer loans to would be pupils. Just because someone has a 2:1 does not make them a better barrister, it just means that they did well in academia - I have witnessed a number of Oxbridge and 'red brick' alumni alienate their clients and the court with their over-reliance on textbook law and procedual approach.
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