By saying 'I am a lawyer' you can mean many different things. As a barrister, you probably work for yourself in a set of chambers, but you could work for a government body or even for a company. And even within those categories, the work you do can vary widely.

In reality, few cases lend themselves to rigid categorisation or fit neatly into traditional categories. What at first appears to be a company law problem could raise issues pertaining to banking, insolvency or insurance law. Accordingly, the majority of chambers undertake varied work. A barrister's practice is thus more much varied than a solicitor's. The Bar tends to be divided into traditional divisions such as chancery and civil, and then further into sub-groups or niche areas such as media and human rights.

Each discipline has its own demands relating to knowledge, temperament, working practices and remuneration. In this section we profile individual barristers who specialise in one of the various practice areas common in the profession, in order that you are able to appreciate what direction your career might take if you were to follow a similar path and to assist you in choosing the general type of practice that will best serve your skills and ambitions.