The ancient buildings, paved courtyards and well-tended lawns of the Inns of Court shout privilege. But is the privilege of being a barrister one that anyone can attain — regardless of social background or wealth?

This week Lord Neuberger, Britain’s newest law lord, will announce the interim findings of his inquiry into what can be done to ensure that the Bar is open to all. Over several months he has led a working party looking at barriers to entry, probing a world that Derek Wood, QC, a former Treasurer of Middle Temple, describes as “subtle and subterranean” — a world of “accent, appearance, lifestyle and other personal markers that define any social dynasty”.

Concerns that it is now harder to enter the Bar have grown along with the costs of university and Bar training. Nearly one in three students arrive with debts of £20,000. The one-year vocational course can add another £15,000 — and non-law graduates have an extra year to fund on top of that.

But the barrier is not just financial. Geoffrey Vos, QC, the Bar chairman, whose father was a Bermondsey leather merchant, identifies other hurdles: lack of contacts or knowledge about the profession; its “intimidating” environment; the scramble to find a pupillage, or training place; and then the challenge of securing a seat in chambers. Finally, there is uncertainty of success or earning power.

“I passionately believe that the professions in general, and the Bar in particular, must be accessible to the most able candidates from any background, whatever their race, gender or socioeconomic group,” Vos says. The Bar is elitist — but elitism that equates with a high-quality service is one thing, elitism that means exclusivity, exclusion and barriers to entry is another.

The profession’s entry profile is far more diverse than it was.

New figures from the College of Law, the biggest training body for solicitors and barristers, show that the proportion of women has been steady at 60 per cent over eight years and on some part-time courses it is 80 per cent. In the past 20 years, the proportion of women trainee solicitors has risen to 60 per cent. At the Bar, a survey of students found that 53 per cent were women and 38 per cent from an ethnic minority.

But then what? Getting in is just the first hurdle. Perceived obstacles once inside can be a further deterrent. At the top, the profession is still mostly male, white and privileged: 73 per cent of barristers in eight top commercial chambers went to private schools. At law firms, the proportion of women partners over ten years has risen slowly — from 16.55 per cent to 23.2 per cent now. So, the college says, “women in the higher levels of the profession are nowhere near beginning to reflect the level of women entering the profession”.

Tackling this lack of diversity also matters because judges come from the ranks of lawyers. Stephen Hockman, QC, last year’s Bar chairman, said as he set up the Neuberger inquiry: “If we are to have a judiciary reflective of the society it serves, enjoying its confidence and support, then we need a representative Bar.” Last week Baroness Usha Prashar, chairwoman of the Judicial Appointments Commission, agreed, lamenting the paucity of women and ethnic minority judges. She said that it was “futile” to focus only on judicial diversity when it was linked with the make-up of the profession as a whole.

Lord Neuberger will commend measures already floated by the Bar for favourable bank loans to enable students to pay for their training and a placement programme for state school pupils such as that just announced by the College of Law, Sutton Trust and five universities.

All this is not simply to do with ethnicity and sex, Lord Neuberger wrote in Counsel magazine. If a profession is not open and seen to be so to the best people for the job, it will not survive.

www.suttontrust.com

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• The best legal yarns this Christmas
• Legal school 'earned £1m by exploiting bar course'
• Axe may fall on 5,000 more City lawyers