Becoming a barrister

Below is a general overview of the barrister's profession in England and Wales and introduces you to some aspects of their work.

Where do barristers fit in?

Barristers usually receive instructions from a solicitor which means that clients wishing to engage a barrister must first approach a solicitor.

What do barristers do?

A solicitor may be able to sort out a legal problem but, if they can't, they will engage a barrister on their client's behalf to provide expert legal opinion and advocacy services. As things currently stand, it is primarily barristers who have rights of audience in the higher courts and are able to present a case before a judge and jury. Whereas many solicitors will routinely work hand-in-hand with their counterparts in other firms towards completion of an agreed goal such as a financial transaction, house purchase or pension arrangement for a large company, barristers are therefore only brought 'onside' because a dispute has arisen or is considered likely to arise.

Consequently, the work experience of a barrister would be very different from that of most solicitors. As a barrister, you should be an expert in the particular dispute procedure in which you are acting such as the complex civil procedure rules that must be followed for an action in the courts. You would also be expected to have expertise in the very narrow area of law around which the dispute resolves (e.g. banking, family, employment etc.). In addition, you will work on your own, to your own timetable and be the main decision-maker on issues such as strategy, tactics, the best legal approach to take and much more.

Whilst such autonomy may sound appealing, it can also present challenges. Working in isolation to your own deadlines often translates into an enormously demanding workload. Furthermore, if things go wrong, you will be first in line to take the blame from both the client and solicitor. Consider also that the reason barristers have such autonomy is because they truly are their own employer. Barristers are self-employed and depend upon the good auspices of the clerks to keep them in work. During your first few years, you may find work sporadic as you build your reputation as a barrister but, once established, you will find the work tremendously rewarding with far greater scope for assuming responsibility and exercising your own judgement very early on.

The main four types of work that you will be engaged upon as a barrister are:

• researching points of law within your own specialist areas
• drafting detailed opinions on legal issues
• prosecuting or defending cases in court
• giving advice and drafting pleadings

 

A typical case management process is as follows:

• Taking a brief: Usually following instruction from a solicitor, you assimilate a set of complex facts and details of situations constituting a legal problem for which an appropriate solution is sought.
• Assessing the brief: The client and their solicitor will seek your additional expert advice on the legal aspects of their case and whether it is viable to take to court.
• Preparing for court : There will be some pre-trial work which may involve meetings or 'conferences' with your client and their solicitor, legal research and negotiations with other parties. Negotiation, even at this stage, may resolve the issues and avoid taking the matter to court.
• Going to court : Your task as a barrister is to present the facts and legal arguments in an effective and convincing manner in order to win your case.

Types of chambers

The type of chambers you join will determine the legal areas in which you will be able to work. Some are exclusively criminal or commercial whereas others offer a particular expertise in one or two areas but still undertake work in a range of others. Where possible, play to your strengths by applying to those chambers in which you are genuinely interested. Your interest may have been inspired by previous work experience or degree subject leading you to believe you would enjoy the type of work they undertake or perhaps you feel your personality is suited to the working environment a particular type of chambers would offer.

Some people are clear about the areas in which they want to work - some are not. If you are not so sure, try putting the actual law out of your mind for a moment and think about what you will enjoy about being at the Bar. If it is advocacy, then you need to think about advocacy-based areas of law - most obviously crime. If you like the notion of defending the rights of individuals against institutions (even the government), then think about Employment, Immigration etc. Don't be exclusively concerned about how you found the subjects on an academic level because the practical reality of an area of law can be quite different from the textbook on the subject.

Talk to barristers and get a sense of what gives them professional fulfilment from the areas in which they practice.

Recent trends have been away from the general practitioner. To compete with solicitors who have rights of audience, barristers need to be specialist advocates AND specialists in an area of law. It is hard to disagree with the logic of this view. Even in sets of chambers that cover a wide range of areas, the individual practitioners are specialists and work in teams - with the practice area teams having a dedicated clerk.

Whilst there are fewer generalist practitioners today, there is nothing wrong in seeking pupillage at sets with a broad base of work and seeing how you like the different areas in practice. If this is your chosen route, do try to counter the impression that your lack of specialism is due to lack of research and insight into life at the Bar. As long as you can overcome this impression, there is nothing wrong in opting for a broad training - indeed many sets will encourage it.

The obvious sources of information about sets of chambers are books such as The Bar Directory and Chambers and Partners . The OLPAS website includes links to all the chambers' websites which are useful sources of information about the set. Networking and asking people about the sets you are considering will offer useful additional perspective. Remember that almost all barristers will describe their own set in wildly glowing terms and will be reluctant to pay too many compliments to other sets, so be careful about basing your opinion of a set on a single source. Solicitors will generally have some insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the sets they instruct. The clerks are also useful barometers of what other sets are like; they will know better than anyone which sets are busy and which are not.

Try and speak to current pupils at a set of chambers to which you are applying. This can be very revealing about the realities of life at that set. Some chambers will have open days for pupillage applicants and some will attend law fairs which give you the chance to meet people from chambers. It is also worth calling chambers and asking if and when they are attending events at which you might be able to meet their members.

Also, keep an eye on notice boards (for example at the Inns) or adverts in Counsel magazine etc for lectures and seminars. If a set of chambers is trying to show off its particular expertise, it will typically seek opportunities for its members to speak at events. Observing how a set of chambers promotes and markets itself will help you gain valuable additional insight into its character.

Essential skills

Barristers need to be both legal experts and exceptional advocates. To succeed as a barrister, you will need to develop the following skills:

• Research and analysis - to manage your cases, you must be able to absorb and make sense of a large amount of information. You need to be able to spot the key issues and their implications.
• Communication/interpersonal skills - to deal with a broad range of clients and colleagues.
• Time management and organisation - you may be given a brief at the end of the day that is up in court the following morning. Your powers of analysis need to be substantiated by good organisational skills and the ability to work quickly under pressure.
• Advocacy - effective advocacy means using all the above skills. Speaking confidently in public and thinking on your feet are skills that undergraduate debating and mooting experience and the BVC should have helped you develop.
• Logical thinking - a successful barrister needs to be able to interpret information and to construct a clear and logical argument.
• Motivation - successful barristers need to be self-starters and risk takers, being self-employed is both challenging and precarious!