Public Affairs Committee Blog

December

I am on the home straight. At the end of my current fixture I will be on maternity leave…yes! And, you guessed it the trial comes to a premature halt with the discharge of the jury. It’s the magic of the bump again (see November’s blog to fully understand this).

It may be just as well that I will be taking this time away from the criminal Bar. Some colleagues are commenting that there may be nothing to return to at the end of my leave. The criminal Bar is certainly changing. I have heard talk before, years ago that the bar as we know it is coming to an end – only for nothing to happen. But I have noticed in the last 12 months the rise of the employed barrister (EB) and the Higher Court Advocate (HCA). Whereas in the past it was a rarety to be in a case with either a EB or a HCA, now it is common place.

Each day when I sign onto exhibit I notice more and more advocates who are working in house for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) or a firm of solicitors. One can not help but notice too, that a significant majority of those names appear to belong to women and other minority barristers.

This (the fact that a high number of EB’s and HCA’s appear to be black or minority ethnic (BME’s)) does not surprise me. At Bar school in 1995 I hung around with a small group comprising of 4 or 5 black women. All of us struggled to find pupillage whereas by sharp contrast our white collegues in our tutorial groups had, in the main secured pupillage before or shortly after the commencement of the Bar Vocational Course (BVC, then only offered at the Inns of Court School of Law).

By the end of the course I was the only one fortunate enough to have secured pupillage. Another two of the group found pupillage later (one I think in house with the CPS) both left the self-employed bar a few years after graduating from the BVC (one of which graduated with a very competent). Of the group only two of us remain in private practice at the bar. One returned to the bar after an 8 year hiatus as a result of dwindling finances and the inability to find pupillage.

The recent documentary “The Barristers” aired on BBC two shows that little has changed. Of the 5 or so trainee barristers followed, all save for the only African trainee secured pupillage. The two white female trainees obtained pupillage first; the only Asian male followed eventually taking pupillage in Birmingham. This despite an increase in the number of BME’s enrolling on the BVC.

So although I recognise and to a certain extent have suffered in terms of a downturn in work from the increase in EB’s and HCA’s, I can not help but feel a certain inevitability about it all. The Bar’s slow pace of change in terms of diversity and retention of BME’s must be a factor in the number of barristers leaving the self employed bar to go in house. That is not to say that the current government’s determination to drive down the criminal legal aid budget to almost unworkable levels is not also a significant factor.

But, if we are to stop this haemorrhage of potential talent and the consequent encroachment into our practices the Bar must modernise and become inclusive as the outgoing Bar Council Chairman, Tim Dutton QC has said publicly on more than one occasion.

Alas, the documentary “The Barristers” revealed that aspects of life at the Bar appear stuck in a time better suited to that of King Arthur and resistant to change. So I start my leave hoping to come back to a career at the Bar, but open to a plan B. Farewell…for now.

Shereener Browne