Students beginning university may have to spend up to £127,000 to qualify as a barrister, the new chair of the Bar Council has warned.
Chantal-Aimée Doerries QC highlighted the huge sums required for training as she voiced concerns that progress on diversity and social mobility within the profession could be thrown into reverse due to the high cost of training.
“For students starting at university this year, the cost of qualifying as a barrister could approach £127,000,” Doerries told the Guardian. “I hear from the junior bar that practising barristers paying off debts of between £40,000 to £60,000 is by no means uncommon [but] those figures are for individuals who completed their undergraduate degrees before higher tuition fees were introduced.”
As most senior judges initially worked as barristers, anything that deters the less privileged from applying is likely to have a significant impact on the future public facade of the legal system.
“The cost of qualifying creates a huge social mobility challenge, which is why we have developed initiatives such as bar placement week and mentoring programmes to encourage able students from non-privileged backgrounds to set their sights on a career at the bar,” said Doerries.
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“Bursaries and scholarships are available, and some may have savings or come from a wealthy background, but for most people, funding for their qualification will come from juggling study and part-time work, student and commercial loans, and family contributions.”
Doerries, who took over as chair of the Bar Council this year, is a member of Atkin Chambers in London and specialises in commercial disputes in the construction, engineering and energy sector. She studied in the US before attending Cambridge University.
Her calculation of £127,000 is higher than previous estimates. It is based on an undergraduate who, as many do, initially takes a non-law degree from a London university then goes on to a graduate diploma in law conversion course followed by a bar professional training course (BPTC) qualification, also in London. BPTC courses can cost up to £19,000.
The overall figures include costs for accommodation, subsistence and tuition fees over five years. Annual living costs in the capital, based on National Union of Students calculations, are about £13,000.
The equivalent for those studying outside London is likely to be only slightly lower, the Bar Council estimates, at about £111,000. How much of that total expenditure will have been converted into debt will depend on each individual student’s funding.
“We see the eager, enthusiastic faces of the next generation,” Doerries said. “I’m sure there’s a future for them but in some places [like the criminal bar] their earning potential has been cut by the government in the past few years.”
The number of applications to join the bar has not declined so far, she added. “There are plenty of individuals who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and have benefited from some scholarship or funding. They are usually the standout students.
“But the risk is that others from less advantaged backgrounds, who are still very good, are being put off from applying. I joined the bar 25 years ago. I thought very carefully about it then – and I benefited from a scholarship.
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“The profession has done a huge amount to promote social mobility. The problem is that we can only do so much given the pressures from outside. The Inns of Court collectively already give away nearly £5m a year in scholarships, bursaries and awards.”
Cuts in criminal court fees, imposed under government austerity policies, have already resulted in fewer chambers taking on new pupils.
Doerries is also a keen supporter of providing pro bono, or unpaid, help to litigants who cannot afford a lawyer but is anxious that barristers’ generosity should not become a substitute for legal aid funding which has progressively been withdrawn.
“Pro bono work should never be seen as replacing what was provided before the reforms introduced by the 2012 Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (Laspo) Act,” she explained. “You can’t expect the profession to pick up those substantial cuts. It’s about the obligation of government; society should expect to pay for access to justice for the vulnerable and needy.”
Since Laspo, which removed the right to representation in most family law and many other areas, the number of litigants in person has soared. The number of new cases funded by legal aid has plummeted.
Doerries is critical of the steep rise in court fees introduced by the government, particularly “enhanced court fees” which are higher than actual costs and cross-subsidise the justice system.
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“There’s cases we would want to attract to London,” she explained, “but in certain areas, such as enhanced court fees, that has the potential to damage [London compared with rival international court centres].
“It is very worrying because [the government] assumes that people end up in the justice system by choice rather than recognising that, like health and education, it should be a fundamental entitlement in the way our democratic system works.”
Doerries is also worried about proposals for online justice being developed by the Ministry of Justice that would enable disputes of less than £25,000 to be processed by non-legal experts.
She said: “The online system for the lower valuation claims may not be less complex or less important for the claimants involved – but we are asuming they don’t necessarily need lawyer input. There’s a risk or potential for building up a two-tier justice system. What will that say to society?”
Source:Qualifying as a barrister 'may cost new students up to £127,000'