As an Asian woman who uses a wheelchair, Husnara Begum laughs that she ticked every minority box when she applied for law school.

Begum, who has rheumatoid arthritis, comes from a Bangladeshi family in Luton. She read law at Warwick University and secured a training contract with Linklaters, one of the so-called magic circle of law firms, which covered her fees and expenses at law school in Nottingham.

“It was a real lifeline because my parents simply couldn’t have afforded them,” said Begum, 29, who edits Lawyer2B, a legal magazine.

She believes that the lack of white working-class men or Afro-Caribbeans in the law can be blamed on education rather than prejudice. “Mentoring and encouragement of these groups should start much earlier, at school,” she said. “If these youngsters don’t get into a good university, they will have little chance of a legal career.”

The two bodies that represent solicitors and barristers, the Law Society and Bar Council, seem to have taken these problems on board. The Law Society runs a diversity access scheme that awards generous scholarships to a dozen talented students who could not otherwise fund their training.

The Bar Council’s Speakers for Schools scheme also aims to widen access, while the schools programme run by the Inner Temple — one of the four Inns of Court to which everyone called to the bar must belong — gives state school pupils the chance to research careers at the bar and even try their hand at advocacy in wigs and gowns.

According to David Pittaway QC, who chairs the education committees of both the Bar Council and the Inner Temple, the notion of a high proportion of white, male, private school and Oxbridge-educated High Court judges is out of date.

“These figures only reflect the historical reality of recruitment from 40 years ago,” said Pittaway. “It’s very different these days. The Inns of Court are trying to make students from all backgrounds aware that the bar is a career they can aspire to. “Of course, with only about 500 pupillages available annually, it’s hugely competitive but with scholarships of more than £4m awarded each year, no bright student should be deterred from applying by lack of funds.”

Martyn Griffiths is training as a barrister thanks to a means-tested Inner Temple scholarship. The son of a television repairman, Griffiths, 22, attended Great Barr Comprehensive in Birmingham where he set up a debating society and won a place to read history at Cambridge, the school’s first Oxbridge student in decades.

Faced with fees of £23,000 (£8,000 for the one-year graduate diploma and £15,000 for the following year’s bar vocational course), Griffiths was awarded £6,250 towards his fees. He will apply for further funding next year.

“I’m not from an inner-city slum,” he said, “but I came from a school without a strong university tradition. I knew at 14 I wanted to become a barrister because the academic and advocacy aspects appealed — standing up in court and putting an argument across. It would have been very difficult to have done the course without the scholarship, so I’m enormously grateful.

“To be a barrister or solicitor, you need drive and academic ability: at least a 2.1 from a good university. It helps to debate and take an interest in the world around you: when you apply for a pupillage [to become a barrister], chambers look for a long-term interest in law and current events. Pupils get an award to cover their costs and a small salary, usually £10,000 minimum, more in some commercial chambers.”

Chris Owen, chief executive of St Philips Chambers in Birmingham, said: “When I started in 1968, it was far more middle class and Oxbridge-dominated. Now the bar represents a far truer cross-section of society. We have people here from many walks of life in their second career — a former army officer, policeman, social worker, nurse and RAF pilot.”

After leaving school at 16 to work in a factory and as a soldier and prison officer, Andy Molloy, 45, took a part-time law degree, studying at night and working as a club bouncer to pay for his books. After work experience at Clock Chambers in Wolverhampton, Molloy was offered a pupillage and called to the bar at the age of 40.

He recently moved to St Philips and specialises in criminal work plus courts martial and prison appeals, an area that can pay about £150,000 a year.

“It helps to be able to speak the forces’ language,” Molloy said. “I also find it easy to talk to my criminal clients because I’m from the same background. It took enormous hard work and six years to qualify but it’s been worth it.”

Begum admits she had to adapt to survive. “Warwick and Linklaters were both full of posh people and to fit in I copied the way they behaved,” she said. “The brown faces in law firms all talk with posh accents. There’s no ‘innit?’ like you hear in Luton.

“It’s important that people from non-traditional backgrounds don’t get chippy and use their class as an excuse for failure but recognise that hard work is necessary to succeed. If I can do it, anyone can.”

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