I despaired after reading this post by Ruthie on Geeklawyer, in which she said:
"[My] advice to those considering a career at the Bar has remained that same over eight years in professional practice: unless you went to the right school, the right University and have lots of money, don’t even waste your time considering a career at the Bar. Even with those advantages, you may still not succeed. But without them…there’s more chance of John Prescott winning the 100 metre sprint at the 2012 Olympics than you securing a tenancy."Why despair? Well, I don't tick any of those boxes. And to add to that, I then I read this in The Times, from the first barrister to earn £1 million from legal aid:
Jim Sturman QC
“The current reforms may prevent someone like me making it to the top because they can’t afford it,” he says. “I have had pupils with £25,000 of debt from their first six months. I remember starting out thinking, ‘I’m a Reading University 2:2 graduate going to the Bar. I’ll qualify and then move on to the City’. I didn’t think people like me would make it at the Bar. Carter may push things back to the realm of the privileged with private incomes who play at it."Still, on the bright side, I'm on course to get a better grade than him.
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6 comments:
Nil desperandum.
What honest advice! I'm similarly going to put my all into getting a better grade than 2.2, but to accept that the odds are against me and I might as well pack up now, is a bit too frank.
Let me just wallow in my glory and convince myslelf that all will be well when I qualify!!
I know the odds are against us, but I'm damn sure going to try any way, just out of spite.
Miss H
So what is the current criteria to go to the bar? Is it exclusive to those who get a first?
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Robert
I'm sorry to generate dispair, but better to give you a dollop of reality now than see you bright dreams crushesd and shattered at a later date, particularly if you've then accrued hugh amounts of debt.
Here's a handy piece of advice: if you do go on to do the Bar course if you can't get pupillage at the end consider going to work for a solicitors firm. The time you work there will normally count towards your experience requirement to cross qualify as a solicitor as a later date. Firms are generally much more willing to hand out paralegal jobs than traineships, cos then then have to pay a minimum wage and fill in lots of forms.
You can then make your way back to the bar via the solicitor-advocate route, and lots of barristers who were rude to you when you were applying for pupillage then have to be very nice to you as a solicitor. Its a good feeling. :-)
With a 2:2 would he even get through the door to be considered for pupillage now? There was a Barrister at the Lincolns Inn student dinner last year who qualified with a 2:2 about 7-8 years ago and he reckoned he was the last person to have done so.
It was a long time ago when a 3rd sufficed for Sir Robert Megarry :-)
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