Hui Ling McCarthy is a tenant at Gray’s Inn Tax Chambers, a leading set specialising in revenue law. Graduating from Durham University with a maths degree, Hui Ling first went to work for US investment bank Bear Stearns in its corporate finance department. However, her thoughts soon turned to other options: “I’d always been interested in law and knew the conversion course was available. It is taught especially well and I think there’s an advantage to having studied all the subjects just a year before Bar school. I haven’t felt at a disadvantage by not having a law degree – in fact, because of the complex nature of tax law, I’ve found it very useful to have done a technical degree that encourages a more structured way of thinking and complements this area of law. In my view, if you’ve done well in your first degree, no chambers will ever turn you away just because it wasn’t in law.”

The intellectual challenge of the Bar particularly appealed to Hui Ling: “If you’re advising a client, particularly at the Tax Bar, there’s lots of research and attention to detail. Sometimes you’re very focused on one small point in isolation, rather than looking at a very general end product.” She also feared that becoming a solicitor might be too much like working at a bank again, this time “analysing contracts instead of spreadsheets!”

Hui Ling discusses her time as a pupil: “It helped that this is a relatively small and friendly set, so I felt I could walk into anyone’s room for advice. It was a bit like a driving exam; they want you to succeed and it’s only you that can throw away your chance! It’s worth looking at how many pupils a set takes on. Obviously there are no guarantees, but it makes for a pretty stressful year if there are four of you and you know from the outset that they only want to keep one. I also found it very helpful that I had worked before pupillage – I was already used to 12-hour days and working weekends! I also had experience of the commercial world, which helped with understanding the problems clients face and the pressure they’re under – although your advice must be legally correct, it also needs to be workable for the client.”

Hui Ling explains the sort of work that she is involved with: “I’ve been lucky to be brought in as a junior on lots of litigation so far, which is relatively rare for a new tenant at the Tax Bar. On the smaller cases, I am pretty much left to my own devices, liaising with the clients and generally running the case right up to the first draft of the skeleton argument. Right now, I am junioring on a couple of appeals to the High Court. One concerns the meaning of the word ‘disposal’ for the purposes of capital gains tax, so it’s very conceptual. Another appeal concerns the availability of an allowable loss resulting from transactions involving life policies to set off against other profits. There is also a lot of advisory work, which constantly keeps you on your toes due to the complexity of the UK Tax Code and the necessity for absolute precision. A ‘shall’ instead of a ‘may’ could change the entire meaning of a clause!” Hui Ling also writes books and articles: “I enjoy the freedom to do my own research and writing that comes with spending a lot of time in chambers.”

According to Hui Ling, there is a particular buzz to be had from those cases where “you think you’re all set, only to be ambushed by the opposition with a new argument they have come up with at the last minute, which means that you have to rush away and work late into the night to find the answer for your reply the next morning. I love it when all the hard work pays off and your case comes together nicely on the day”.

While there may not be as much court time in tax as in other branches of the Bar (eg, the Criminal Bar), you still have to be an exceptional advocate: “When you do appear, there is no room for error. You are often handling very technical arguments on complex points of law and have to know exactly what you want to say and how to say it. In essence, you need to be able to put your argument forward in a way that the court can grasp without the benefit of having done your research. So you need to have the skills, even if you aren’t practising them that much. However, you also need to understand that you’re not going to get lots of appeals in the particular niche in which you wish to specialise; rather, you have to be patient and persevere to shape your practice. No one is going to do it for you.”

Hui Ling discusses the sort of skills and experience that are essential at the Tax Bar: “You have to be very academically capable, with an ability to understand and manipulate the legislation and get to grips with the case law. There’s no room for showmanship or glossing over. It is very helpful to have an academic tax background, such as an LLM or a practical tax course to give you an overview of how the tax regime operates as a whole. Even if you don’t have enough time to attend a taught course, a professional body such as the Association of Taxation Technicians offers a useful qualification, which you can study at home to fit around a job or Bar school.” Other useful experience might include doing a stage at the European Commission and any corporate work experience (particularly in the tax department of a firm of solicitors or accountants) that means you’re not just a “brand-new graduate who is clueless about the business world”.

Hui Ling attests to the value of getting involved with the Free Representation Unit (FRU): “At the beginning of your career, you mostly represent taxpayers so you very rarely get a chance to do any cross-examining. As a result, I found FRU training and working on a case incredibly useful because you get valuable real-life cross-examination experience, albeit in a different area of law. A lot of the exceptional barristers at the Tax Bar are those that have gone out of their way to get such skills.”

And of course, it’s a case of the more mini-pupillages the better, for a couple of reasons. Hui Ling explains: “If you have impressed at a mini-pupillage, you’ll almost certainly be invited back for an interview. Even if you then miss out on that pupillage, if you received good feedback from your week in chambers, you at least know you were close, but simply unlucky that time. It’s worth persevering; there’s competition everywhere, so don’t let that be the only reason to put you off choosing the Bar.”