Bar humbug?

"It's tough", you hear. "What's new?", you say. Well, when it comes to practising at the Bar, there's quite a lot that is new and, moreover, things really are tougher than ever. Legal aid cuts, financial crisis, solicitors doing their own advocacy - are you doomed before you even begin?

I spoke to dozens of barristers over the summer as part of my research for The Training Contract & Pupillage Handbook, and when I asked them what some of the hot topics were in 2011, the overarching theme was that change was afoot and the Bar was going to have to adapt to survive.

Most often cited were concerns about the new legal aid funding rules and, more specifically, the £350 million destined to be cut. Adam Wagner, barrister at One Crown Office Row and founder of the UK Human Rights Blog, said: "With legal aid no longer available for certain claims, such as clinical negligence, there'll be less work around. At the same time, legal aid rates for criminal work have gone down and down. It may make the profession smaller, or it might mean some criminal sets branch out into other areas traditionally covered by others. The effects will be felt broadly and for a long time."

Harpreet Sandhu of No5 Chambers is a criminal barrister. He agreed with Adam, and saw the legal aid cuts as posing a massive threat to the Criminal Bar: "There are huge challenges ahead. There are inevitably going to be cuts to fees for those who defend, and potentially huge cuts if you prosecute." And he thinks that some won't pursue it as a career at all: "The reality is that some people who might have considered this will look at the uncertainty and go elsewhere. So you need real determination and an acceptance that there will be some pretty tough years ahead."

Housing is another area that will be hard hit by the reforms, as pointed out by Mark Diggle of Ropewalk Chambers: "Legal aid will no longer be available for claims of disrepair, unless there is significant risk to health and life. This opens the way to unscrupulous landlords in the private housing sector, where they already have the resources on their side. It is taking away access to justice, and slum landlords will be able to get away with it more easily because they won't be challenged as often."

Something of an understatement, but the Bar is known to be resistant to change. With alternative business structures (ABS) now a reality, and new ways in which to offer legal services being made available, Adam thought that some at the Bar would adapt: "Different chambers have different attitudes to innovation - some will go for it, others won't! As much as we're an old-fashioned, chivalrous profession, if something is likely to make money, there will be those that embrace it."

And there was a positive response from some, such as Thomas Munby of Matiland Chambers. He felt that the Commercial Bar was largely immune to the vagaries of legal aid reforms and economic crises affecting other sectors of the profession. He explained: "Touch wood, we've been very lucky in our commercial and chancery practice, compared to colleagues in other areas who are dependent on legal aid. Equally, commercial work is such that you tend to find yourself working in harmony with solicitors, rather than in an increasingly competitive way. In economic terms, sometimes the work runs with the cycle, sometimes it's counter-cyclical, so we're comparatively shielded. For example, with the economy hitting a bad patch, there has been a peak in fraud, professional negligence and insolvency work. But we still need to stay competitive and provide a good service, so that London remains an attractive place for people to litigate or arbitrate."

So, that's just a snapshot of a few practitioners. Perhaps the thing to take away is that not one of them advised would-be barristers to give up and try something else (unless of course their aspirations were ill-founded and ill-advised to begin with). Equally, none of them were saying that they were planning their exit strategy. The universal message was to work hard, excel academically, focus on your goal, and do your research. Combined with a healthy dose of realism, success at the Bar could be yours.

PS A couple of weeks ago, Legal Futures offered a nifty analysis of the Bar, grouping barristers into four age-related categories. Take a look - you'll probably identify pretty quickly where you sit on the spectrum, but it's worth reading about all the groups, as these are the people with whom you'll certainly be working and who could even be making the decisions about whether to give you a shot at our dream career!