Jobs: Barristers: Why it can be a career bar none for some: In a week that saw the death of George Carman, Britain's most celebrated and highly paid advocate, Liz Stuart and Natasha Ram discover that the barrister's lot is not as lucrative at it once was

• Published in: The Guardian (London)
• Main Author: Liz Stuart and Natasha Ram
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 06.01.2001
• Subjects: Attorneys; Careers
• ISSN: 0261-3077

The profession already has high barriers to entry and the bar continues to be accused of operating as a self-perpetuating elite. While Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the former Lord Chief Justice, claims in the newly published book Discriminating Lawyers that the stereotype of the profession as predominantly a "white, middle- class, middle-aged, Oxbridge-educated elite" is misleading, he does admit that there is some foundation for the cliche. He says it is harder for women from ethnic minorities or for graduates of "unfashionable universities" to enter. Professor Phil Thomas of Cardiff University, the book's author, says that 66% of male Oxbridge graduates se cured pupillage (a one- year apprenticeship during which trainee barristers are attached to one or two chambers) against 10% from new universities. Further acknowledgment that there is a problem came when Cherie Booth QC was told, very publicly by her fellow barristers, that government policy was to blame for the industry's skewed profile. "An overdraft of pounds 20,000 is common. That is a lot of money by any standards, but to poorer families it is a huge amount. . . Let's be clear, and Cherie Booth please note, it is the result of deliberate government policy to cut out grants and force students to borrow instead," says Jonathan Hurst QC at a bar conference. He also urges the bar to make it compulsory for pupils to be paid through their year of training. The best-paid QC earned pounds 268,000, although these figures mainly represent earnings in the smaller, general criminal and legal chambers. The big commercial sets can pay pounds 25,000 just for pupillage and after five years as a common-law barrister you could be netting up to pounds 100,000. Specialists earn more than generalists.