There has been a widespread uneasiness surrounding entry to the Bar for many years now. Providers of the Bar Vocational Course (BVC) have been criticised for consistently accepting large numbers of students who have no realistic prospect of going on to practice as barristers. With BVC fees high — over £14,000 at some providers — and pupillage numbers declining, there is an increasing feeling that the present status quo should not be allowed to continue.
Over the years, various working parties have attempted — and failed — to satisfactorily address the issue of vocational training for barristers. While the rhetoric has been well meaning, little genuine progress has actually been made.
However, last year’s working party on diversity and access to the Bar, chaired by Lord Neuberger, marked a change in tone — with its report (published last December) proposing various relatively radical changes to the BVC, including an aptitude test.
Under the leadership of Falcon Chambers’ Derek Wood QC, the Bar Standards Board’s (BSB’s) recent working party has taken into consideration these recommendations. The result is a much needed facelift for the BVC.
Wood, who conceded that the gap between the amounts of students undertaking the BVC and the numbers of available pupillages was impossible to ignore, is optimistic that the changes can improve the aspects of the course that have attracted the most complaints.
“We have addressed the main criticisms of the BVC,” says Wood “namely, that there are too many students, that admission standards are too low, that students do not realise how hard it is to get a pupillage and that the course is too expensive.”
The first thing that stands out about the re-vamped BVC is the name. From 2010 the course will be known as the BPTC, or Bar Professional Training Course.
Substantive changes to the course include a formally taught professional ethics module and a new section on resolution of disputes out of court. In addition, greater weight will be given to written and oral advocacy. Course providers will face a stricter regulatory regime, with each required to explain course fee levels as part of a re-accreditation process. They must also publish three-year aggregated figures of the number of students who have progressed to attain pupillage.
However, it is the introduction of an aptitude test, which students must pass to gain admission on to the course, that has got everybody talking.
According to the BSB, it will be conducted in an entirely written exam form and focus on comprehension, fluency in the English language and critical reasoning. It will be mandatory from 2010, although there will be no limits as to the number of times a student can take it. The test is likely to be available to take on a voluntary basis from 2009.
The hope is that a test will act as a filter to thin out the numbers of students taking the course and improve standards. When publishing his report, Wood said: “There are students who simply would not meet the standards required to obtain pupillage, however many pupillages were on offer.
“Their deficiencies range from a lack of conceptual understanding of the way in which the law functions, to an inability to speak fluently and write well-structured English prose. These deficiencies are not limited to students whose first language is not English. By raising the admission standards, we suspect that the numbers on the course will fall.”
Most barristers view the test as a good idea. Adam Kramer, a junior at 3 Verulam Buildings, notes: “The aptitude test is a good thing because at present a lot of students are being misled by their acceptance on to the course into thinking they have a realistic chance at the Bar.
“It will mean the standard of students and lessons will be higher. The key test for the Bar has always been merit, where we have no option but to be elitist. Anything that looks at merit will be a good thing.”
However, there were several concerns raised by legal education professionals about the practical administration of the tests. “I welcome the report on a broad basis and it is very constructive, but there are some areas of concern,” cautioned Peter Crisp, the dean of
Crisp points to the Bar’s “less than happy history” with aptitude tests, a reference to the exams used by the Inns of Court School of Law (ICSL) (now
“I am pretty confident that the committee will come up with a good test that has sufficient road-testing,” he adds, “but it is an area that is fraught with danger. Also, in practice it could have a lot of unintended results on gender, race and age aspects.”
Diversity is an issue in any initiative involving entry to the Bar. Like the consultations that have preceded it, the Wood report is keen to make sure that the best candidates have the opportunity to progress, regardless of background. The general consensus is that the aptitude test could help facilitate this — if it is structured in a way that enables gifted minority students who have not benefited from education at elite institutions to outshine less able, but perhaps more confident, applicants from traditional backgrounds.
“It is important that the Bar is not a closed off profession, but that does not mean there should not be a filter system to maintain high standards,” says
However, some think the changes have not gone far enough, failing to tackle what they see as the real problem: the cost of the course.
“The whole thing has been a bit of a missed opportunity,” says Kramer. “They tinkered with it rather than overhauled it. They should have cut the course in half, leaving in advocacy, procedure and drafting. The rest of the modules you can learn during pupillage. This would have halved the costs, which could also further the aim of improving diversity in the profession.”
Opinions remain divided about the new BPTC. Ultimately, only time will tell if a change for the better occurs. Still, with the current situation widely seen as so bad that it couldn’t get much worse, any success in reducing numbers on the course is likely to be greeted positively.
