Barristers involved in this field deal with claims against professionals such as architects, accountants or solicitors who are alleged to have failed in their duty of care towards clients. Clinical negligence is a type of professional negligence that involves disputes between patients and healthcare providers (usually doctors), centring on quality of care.

Paul Mitchell was all set for life as an academic; he'd gained a first in oriental studies at Cambridge and followed this up with an MA at the prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies. It was when he returned to Cambridge to work on his PhD that he first questioned the path he was on. "I went to the university library to find a thesis that somebody else had written," he recalls. "I read it and it was magnificent, a completely beautiful piece of work. Then I looked at the title page and noticed it had been put into the library in 1968, the year of my birth, and that I was the first person to take it out in 25 years. I realised that what I was doing in academia didn't have immediate enough consequences for me."

Paul had a number of friends who were barristers and, after a few weeks shadowing them, he realised that the Bar might suit his scholarly talents and provide the real-world connection he was seeking. After taking the CPE he landed a pupillage at Fountain Court Chambers. He has never found that his lack of a law degree has hampered his career development at the Bar; in fact, quite the contrary.

"It helps quite a bit to have done something else," he suggests. "It gives you some background, which can be very useful. Skills are transferable from one academic discipline to another and it is great to do something that you really enjoy at university. I can't speak for everybody, but a lot of people I know studied law through gritted teeth. They love the job, but the studying wasn't such a thrill. I didn't have that problem."

His pupillage was no cakewalk, however. "It was a nightmare," Paul recalls. "Obviously there are a lot of good bits and you get to see some very interesting cases, but the whole pupillage process is basically a year-long interview. You desperately want the right result - the offer of a tenancy - and it puts massive pressure on you. I didn't really enjoy it."

That said, Paul does remember the positive side of pupillage. At Hailsham Chambers, the pupils sit with barristers of between 10 and 15 years' call and learn the job by observing and assisting them in work at a level which they are unlikely to encounter again for some time. "I think that's a great joy," he explains, "sitting with your pupil master and understanding a legal issue and how to explain it to a client in an advice, how to plead it or how to craft a skeleton argument. That is a real pleasure and the more complicated bits of work give you an insight that you can apply on simpler things."

Paul happened into professional negligence as a specialty through a chance meeting during his pupillage with a junior barrister who was at Hailsham at the time, and still thoroughly enjoys the work. He explains that while the professional negligence practice area is paper heavy, there are opportunities to have your day in court. "A lot of it is paperwork," he says. "Most cases settle. Also, as many claims have merit, it tends to be a negotiation over how much, rather than whether, to pay. So there is a lot of paperwork, bottoming out the issues and narrowing down the areas of dispute before settling. Of course, there are also trials for those cases where people fundamentally disagree with each other, which are by far the best bits - they're what it's all about. I do like having to present a case and persuade a tribunal to look at things in my client's way."

It's no surprise that recently much of Paul's work has stemmed from the fallout from the financial crisis, as financial institutions look to apportion blame for the losses they have suffered and individuals try to make sense of their suddenly dwindling savings. "There is an enormous amount of litigation," he says. "The biggest stuff for me is institutions suing each other or lenders suing firms of solicitors and valuers. It sometimes seems as if there's just a river of money being diverted from the insurance companies to the banks and back again. On a more human level, however, you get lots of individuals who might have followed an investment strategy devised by an independent financial adviser that turned out to be a total catastrophe; or those who sought tax-planning strategies that went wrong because they made assumptions about rising markets. Then there are people who've been defrauded in things like Ponzi schemes, and you have some very angry and totally wiped-out individuals."

This flood of cases sits alongside the bread and butter of professional negligence work - the constant stream of things that just go wrong: "There's the woman who split up from her partner and wants to claim some of the house, and the solicitors get that wrong. Or the man who buys a house that was built in the back garden of someone else's house and finds out that he's got no right of way to get to it."

To succeed at the Bar, Paul believes that several core skills are important. Not least of these is stamina, as the days are long and the work is hard. It's also beneficial to be able to maintain concentration so that you can spot crucial details and fit them into the bigger picture of the case. Thoroughness is key, as is a good measure of common sense to complement your legal understanding.

For future lawyers considering joining the professional negligence Bar, Paul recommends gaining an understanding of what it's like to work in a profession. "It is very easy to judge in a simplistic way, to criticise someone and say that they are being negligent," he says. "But the courts don't look at it so simplistically; they really put themselves in the shoes of the professionals and try to understand what the ordinary, reasonably competent member of the profession would do. So I'd suggest that people familiarise themselves with a profession in order to get a sense of what it's like to be monitored by a regulator or to work under a partner and open files, meet clients and try to stay on top of everything under pressure."

Paul certainly believes it's worth the effort. His career has definitely given him the sense of engagement that he sought when leaving academia. "Every single case gives you fear, satisfaction and excitement," he says. "Like most people, I've had some great cases where we've totally crushed the other side, but it's actually more important for prospective lawyers to know that it's not the one big case that makes your career sing; it's the continual flow of really interesting problems. You get to see every single part of life and it is just fascinating."