UK Law Articles
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The Times
August 18 1998
Karen Peploe reports on how part-time courses are luring many more to the Bar
Breaking barriers to the Bar
At the Bar Conference last year, Jack Straw confessed that he had chiefly made it from council estate to the Bar through the help of a local education authority grant to fund his year at Bar School.
Today the situation is bleaker. A recent survey at the Inns of Court School of Law (ICSL) - the UK's main provider of the Bar Vocational Course, the BVC - showed that little more than 1 per cent of students were able to look to their local authority for full fee support.
Fees cost up to £6,000, without living expenses, which means that a year's study at Bar School can cost upwards of £15,000. Prospective candidates are likely to be in debt through student loans, so it is not surprising that many would-be barristers come from high-income families. At a time when the Bar is sensitive to criticism of being elitist, this is a chief concern.
The ICSL, in Gray's Inn in London, was a pioneer of the BVC and is the only institution to run a two-year, part-time course geared for those in full-time employment. Now in its second year, the course has attracted 75 students from a variety of backgrounds including civil engineers, architects, senior police officers and even a police surgeon.
Jacqueline Lule is 28 and works as a resettlement worker with homeless people. She aims to be a barrister, ideally specialising in criminal or human rights law. Jacqueline says that without the ICSL's part-time course, financially she would not have stood a chance of getting to the Bar, despite receiving a scholarship of £1,000 from Middle Temple.
The course, she believes, has made the Bar more accessible to those from less privileged backgrounds, "and that can only be good news for the depth and diversity of the legal system". She is gaining experience through voluntary work at a legal centre to maximise her chances of gaining a pupillage next year. "I think part-timers have a lot to offer. If we can manage to hold down full-time jobs, use our annual leave for minipupillage experience, it shows great determination and I think that the Bar has to take us seriously."
Naval officer Sean Moore, 28, is assigned to the Commander-in-Chief Fleet in London. Sean pays his own fees but has just been selected to become one of about 30 barristers employed within the Royal Navy to deal with courts martial and to provide legal advice. Sean believes the course is ideal because without it, he would have had to take at least a year out from the Navy and to put his career on hold. He feels that the course is an "ideal way to combine the two". He admits the diverse mix of students on the part-time course makes for "lively and interesting debate".
Sean's pupillage is being arranged by the Navy and will take place, by mutual agreement, at a leading criminal chambers. Sean will be faced with a variety of legal responsibilities on qualification. The Navy insists on the same standard of training for its barristers as for their civilian counterparts.
Andrea Barnes, 27, works as a legal "float" for solicitors Davies Arnold Cooper, based in the City, and hopes to become a commercial barrister. Although she left university without any debts, she says: "I am one of the more practical individuals supporting myself through my LLB (Hons) Law degree by working part-time, but I would not have been able to support myself and to have paid the fees for the full-time course too." She admits the part-time course requires hard work and determination but she has been given "tremendous support" from her employers.
"Not only have they allowed me study leave for examinations, but they have also been on hand to provide me with invaluable feedback on legal skill areas which compose the role of a potential advocate."
Like her fellow students, Andrea is concerned about the availability of pupillage places. She has discovered that those chambers operating outside the pupillage clearing system (PACH) tend to be more receptive to mature students. She knows that the social skills acquired throughout her employment at Davies Arnold Cooper, not to mention her day-to-day legal experience, are a distinct advantage over full-time students.
"The Bar continues to change." she says. "Although academic excellence is still vital, the profession demands more multi-faceted individuals with a combination of finely honed social skills, an ability to communicate on all levels and, dare I say it, a very good sense of humour."
- The ICSL (0171-404 5787) is the only UK institution with Bar education as its main focus. It has an annual intake of 750 full-time and up to 100 part-time students and is the largest provider of the Bar Vocational Course.
