Not a good time to be a criminal barrister (a supplement)

I've been doing some various research on the bar, seeming as that is what I want to do and I could even *shock horror* bring it up an interview, rather than just regurgitating Simon Myerson's ten reasons why I want to be a barrister, which of course I do intend to do, if not albeit my own tweaked versions.

So here is some further research about what difficulties lay in our bleak future.

Recent reports that the bar will become a two tier profession; those doing work based on legal aid are likely to get f' all whilst the commercial fat cats will have more money. The criminal bar's future definitely does look bleak.

Also at this years bar conference, barristers are furious over the inadequacy of solicitor's performances in court, who have little or no relevant experience. See here

Lord Carter's report on Legal Aid and the reform (imagine putting someone in charge of reforming legal aid when they have NO experience in the system and as he admitted he had no experience of the sytem before he started work on it) are likely to have a heavy impact on the legal aid system, as already mentioned in the previous post solicitors are more likely to take on more junior work in house. Establishing a fixed advocacy fee also looks very likely. We already know of what the Legal Services Commission wants to do to the bar (personally I think eradicate it or at least try and cut some costs which will mostly be in the criminal bar) earlier this year accusing the bar to be breaking competition laws.

The legal services commission is not very well looked upon especially in my experience of criminal barristers who refer to people who have signed onto the latest VHCC as "scabs" the equivalent to a traitor, much like those people who went to work mining during the strikes of the 70's and 80's. I'm not entirely sure if this is because they do not want fixed fees, or do not in general like the LSC.

What can be said is that the criminal bar will definitely shrink, if not all other areas of the bar, and good people will go far, and the lesser ones will go and work for the CPS. Which currently I think may be better than going to chambers, at least if they do all their own work in house it means that I will never have to worry about having no work.

I'm not sure why everyone wants to cut down the legal aid budget, from what I know the legal aid budget would fund the NHS for two weeks, so hardly that expensive, a cut in costs will ultimately either mean a leaner profession or one that no longer attracts the brighest.


Further Reading
Is the Bar becoming a two tier profession - Frances Gibb - Times Law
How healthy is the Bar? - Frances Gibb - Times LawToo many solicitors are no good in court, say barristers - Frances Gibb - Times Law
Young Legal Aid Lawyers - try and check out the videos they are quite good, you can see how the profession is being squees, also look for the very angry woman in red, she makes some very good points.

Not a good time to be a criminal barrister.

We are in recession, let's all face it, not as if pupillage wasn't hard enough to get, it will now become inevitably impossible. The Bar has gone from Highly Competitive to Hyper Competitive. For those of us who wish to become criminal barristers we may think that things will be easier, recession normally means high crime rates, so lots of work coming in or not as the case may be.

During the last recession in 1992 commercial practise dried up, leaving the non-criminal chambers with little or no work, so they started to branch out into areas of Law they had never done before, such as Family and Crime. Thus the amount of work, especially the amount of work that is done by junior barristers fell. Now if you were chambers would you really look to seek to new untrained people into your little family, if inevitably they will either not have any work to do or will be fighting for the tiniest scrap of work left.

Though there may now be structures in place and of course if a barrister is a specialist in a certain area their amount of work is unlikely to be affected too drastically. If however commercial chambers start to pick up an interest in other areas of law and eat into criminal work then this will significantly affect the budding wannabe criminal barrister, as they will most likely take away very junior work i.e. magistrates appearances, and lesser offences in the Crown Court.

Now if we couple the idea that other barristers whom shockingly didn't want to do criminal law because they wanted to make a lot of money, now want to do criminal law because they have no money with the idea of solicitor advocates (or as Geeklawyer refers to them solicitor inadequates) then the problem is further exposed.

Solicitor advocates are the bane of a barrister. Why? They again eat up work done by very junior barristers. Logically solicitor advocates are a good thing for at least a solicitor. If you have a certain amount of money allocated to a case then why not keep all of the money in house? Why instruct barristers to conduct work for you when you have an advocate within your own organisation?

Some may think that barristers who are highly trained in advocacy, will always out do the solicitor who does not necessarily have the experience of appearing before a tribunal of fact, this won't be the case of those of us just starting out, a solicitor advocate will most likely have similar abilities and skill to our own.

Before we can even think of practising as a barrister we have to look at the availability of pupillages. There is a 1 in 4 (or 5) chance of getting a pupillage, with around 450 pupillages and 3,700 applicants (See Simon Myerson QC on "The Chance of Success"). The Bar is a competitive profession so naturally it is selective as to who enters it.

As mentioned before it has gone from being highly competitive to hyper competitive, a comment on Mr Myerson's blog said that all barristers possess two qualities; high intelligence and self delusion and cheekily I would like to add a third - the ability to drink. We would have to be delusional to want to apply to a very selective profession, that can regularly work 80 hours a week, that takes up weekends and restrict social lives, for what gain? Time to really assess why we want to be barristers, and whether we have the right characteristics.

So we have two great boundaries (1) if we get a pupillage (2) if there will be any work left.

Lets hope the recession is going to be a short one, however for those of us graduating now, or have just finished the BVC the prospects look suitably bleak, unless of course you are one of those lucky ones to have a pupillage already lined up in that case you are unlikely to read my blog.