Young Bar

Under pressure: facing the facts on today’s junior Bar, practitioners discuss problem-solutions with Dan Hayes  

Barrister-slash-system designer? It’s high time the Junior Bar got to grips with the impact of technology on their practices – and on the legal system, argues Rick Hoyle  

As funding, wellbeing and retention crises hit the publicly funded Bar where it hurts, Frances Judd QC and Stephen Knight are candid on pain points and turn arounds  

Junior barristers, now more than ever, face a world which looks increasingly uncertain. Rick Hoyle, Chair of the Young Barristers’ Committee, looks at the worrying trend and what is being done about it  

Whilst the Bar as a whole is now larger than ever before, at a little over 16,000 practising barristers, that trend masks much more disturbing news at the junior end. 

Record numbers of chambers are applying to the COIC Pupillage Matched Funding Scheme, now hitting its stride. Nathalie Lieven QC reports  

2016/ 2017 saw 40 pupillages supported by the Council of the Inns of Court (COIC) Pupillage Matched Funding Scheme, helping pupils in 37 sets of chambers.  

Upsides and flipsides: supervisors and pupils from the self-employed and employed Bar give warts-and-all accounts of their experiences of a year under very different wings  

Forewarned, forearmed: Dr Justine Rogers’ insider study of barristers and their pupils found distinct traits and pressures but there are collegiate solutions   

‘Pupillage is like doing a marathon with a box in your hands. And inside the box is a glass vase which you need to keep intact, and you don’t get to open the box until the end of the marathon and for all you know the vase broke on day one!’ 

Guy Fetherstonhaugh QC and Simon O’Toole assess the Pupillage Supervisor Network one year on and offer a view on pupillage regulation  

The Bar may be forgiven for thinking that our regulators positively enjoy tinkering with the rules for pupillage.  

As the general election pauses the planned whiplash reforms, Robert Weir QC examines the winners and losers, implications for personal injury litigation and disproportionate impact on the junior Bar  

Twenty years ago, it was commonplace for pupils and new tenants to cut their teeth on crime, family and personal injury work.  

Don’t let consultation fatigue saddle generations of future Bar students with more of the status quo: a hugely expensive course with low prospects of acquiring pupillage at the end, argues Guy Fetherstonaugh QC  

Consultation fatigue is a particular problem for the Bar, with its substantial cohort of busy and independently minded practitioners.