Career Clinic: Should I quit the magic circle to pursue my Bar ambitions?

Don't be naive about your training contract - many barristers will have friends or even clients in large City law firms and so will know that trainees in those firms don't do anything meaningful.

The very top commercial sets won't touch you if you were the sort of person they wouldn't touch before you did a training contract (ie if you didn't have a first) regardless of your experience in a law firm. For you to move into those sets without being the sort of person they normally recruit and hoping to make up for it with law firm experience, you need a hell of a lot of experience and contacts (eg partner level).

Other lesser sets may well see experience in a law firm as an advantage - but that implies getting a bit more experience than simply completing a training contract, at least a couple of years in practice in a relevant area. If you complete a training contract and move over right after your training contract ends without getting any qualified experience, I don't think it would hurt you but it won't help you either - so you need to be the sort of person they would want anyway.

If you were the sort of person they would recruit anyway and wanted to be barrister, why didn't you go to the Bar in the first place? If what you were worried about is risk, having a training contract or even a couple of years experience as a solicitor won't mean you will be guaranteed to be given a tenancy after pupillage nor will it mean you have steady work if you get a tenancy. Having a LOT of experience and contacts in a solicitors firm can mean you will be guaranteed work but that isn't what you are proposing. All that risk is still there. It sounds like you regret your earlier cowardice now that you have to deal with the reality of being a trainee.

Consider if your cowardice was justified - ie if you were going to make it at the Bar if you had applied. If not, live with it or play a long game of practising as a solicitor for several years. If so, save yourself time and jump asap.

Anonymous -03 Nov 2009 | 15:06

Some Examples

Experience is key.

There are parallels with existing members of the Bar who have generally moved, but these are at senior associate or partner level. If you look at Patrick Goodall at Fountain Court, Tim Lord QC at Brick Court Chambers, Anna Carboni at Wilberforce Chambers, all of these have made it from a desire to develop their existing litigation/commercial/IP skills, but from an MC background.

There are lateral moves at other levels - Nick Armstrong at Matrix, Jane Russell at Tooks, but each of these had been at good firms, extremely strong litigation or advocacy backgrounds, and had held leadership roles in the law as well.

My advice is to develop your career as a solicitor and seek to practice advocacy as a solicitor if you can. Then see what the next five years bring. Good luck!

Ben Rigby -03 Nov 2009 | 16:30

I am head of pupillage at a well-known commercial set. We are always interested in applications from suitably qualified candidates who feel they have made the wrong first career move. Our recent recruitment shows as much. My strong advice would be to identify sets in which you are interested and send them your CV in confidence - possibly after a telephone call or email to make sure that it really will be treated in confidence. The two previous comments are unnecessarily discouraging.

Anonymous -04 Nov 2009 | 11:29

Don't rule it out!

It is not too late to 'backtrack' in the following sense: you can apply in spring 2010 for a pupillage through the Pupillage Portal. You will then be considered alongside the many other applicants (about 150 in the case of my chambers). As those above have observed, the question is whether you are good enough to be offered a pupillage (we offer three) in the fair fight of the interview process. The training contract will be largely neutral in your application, save that the experience may help you to impress (by talking sensibly about commercial law and cases) in your interview, and it may also help you to get an interview in the first place.

If you were offered pupillage, it would be for October 2011.

It is not uncommon for us to receive applications from those in a training contract or newly-qualified. All would come into chambers at the bottom, but it certainly does happen: in the last couple of years we've offered tenancy to a Linklaters trainee and a Freshfields tenant. Those who've been in the firms often have contacts, but also general commercial/solicitor awareness and polish.

In my view, therefore, very early in a solicitor career is the ideal time to move. (If you move a few years in you end up going back to square one at the Bar.)

I should add that qualified solicitors (i.e. not you) do not need to apply through the Pupillage Portal and often do not have to do a full pupillage (depending upon how much experience they have).

Adam Kramer, 3 Verulam Buildings -04 Nov 2009 | 11:32

Go for it

Don't be discouraged. I worked in the litigation practice of a top ten City firm and a couple of trainees/junior solicitors made the move to the Bar successfully.
I don't think it is a question of not having the "courage" to apply to the bar at the time. Completing a well-paid training contract is a sensible move to prepare yourself financially for the transition to the Bar. As you correctly say, there is a high level of risk and uncertainty and should you fail to gain tenancy you can still pursue a career in law as you will have a solicitor's qualification to fall back on.
I think it would be helpful to make sure you do as many seats in litigation as possible during your training contract to build experience and develop your contacts at the Bar.
You could also consider pro bono as a means to get more advocacy exposure.

Inhouse counsel -04 Nov 2009 | 15:53

Some thoughts.

Please ignore the nasty post from the first Anonymous. Perhaps one day he/she will appreciate the irony in calling someone a coward without having the guts to identify him/herself, but I doubt it.

Mr Rigby's advice is partly correct. However, Mr Goodall did pupillage at Fountain Court shortly after completing his articles - his was not a move at senior associate level (if you research the position you will see that it varies - some move after training contract, some at partner level when seeking a new challenge).

The advice given above by the head of pupillage and 3VB is sound and I would follow it.

What would I do? (1) Conduct some research into junior barristers who have made the move recently - very easy with online CVs - and see whether you have anything in common with these individuals; (2) By hook or by crook try and get to meet 2 or 3 of them - discreetly - and discover straight from the horse's mouth the potential pitfalls, challenges and benefits.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

10-yr call "magic circle set" junior barrister (not previously a solicitor).

Anonymous -05 Nov 2009 | 08:47

People will always, always over-talk what it takes to get on at the Bar. Fact undeniably is that to get into an elite chambers demands more, academically and personally, than to get even a top City TC. However virtually anyone who can get a TC with a good law firm can get a place somewhere at the Bar, albeit with a non-commercial set perhaps (but remember that commercial work is not the best that the Bar has to offer in any event).

Go for it, I say. The world needs more barristers and fewer solicitors.

Mutton Jeff -09 Nov 2009 | 10:54

Tell me - do you want to become a barrister so much that you'd be happy to be a barrister but (if lucky) doing a mix of civil and criminal work and having to schlep around the country every day doing bail applications here and there? You might even be a squatter for the first year or two while you wait for a tenancy to come up. Remember too that you need to be very independent to work well as a barrister - will you miss the team work? M.

may kasahara -13 Nov 2009 | 16:32