You're very, very smart. You’re capable of working 16-hour days and rounding them off with a session of voluntary work at a local school. You learn fast. You can talk to anyone, and you don’t see a life at the Bar as a ticket to riches. Got that? If so, you might just make it as a barrister — spending your days writing legal opinions and representing clients in civil or criminal courts.

Being a barrister is not unlike having permanent exam stress: hard work, long hours, tight deadlines. You need to be good at research and capable of assimilating a lot of information very fast before presenting it to a judge or jury. Despite the pressure, many find it incredibly rewarding, says one barrister, Sinead O’Rourke. “You have to have a very clear understanding of your motivation for going to the Bar,” she says. “The financial rewards are not there in the publicly aided system.” The million-pound-plus cases crop up — but are rare. On the other hand, you will be helping vulnerable people in their fight for justice. Civil specialists tend to earn more than criminal law advocates. Those employed by the Crown Prosecution Service, earn up to £56,000, but most are self-employed — which means business savvy is a must — and earn between £19,000 and £260,000.

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. There are a lot of exams to pass before you start worrying about cash flow. The entry point is a 2:2 undergraduate degree or better; if it’s not a law degree, you’ll need to spend a year completing a law conversion course. Then you need to join one of the four Inns of Court and take a place on the Bar Vocational Course (one year full-time or two years part-time). Add successful completion of this to 12 qualifying sessions (which range from education days to social dinners), take a deep breath, and you’ll be called to the Bar. Then it’s only a matter of getting two six-month pupillages (spent shadowing a practising barrister) before striking out on your own. Getting a place in one stage is not a guarantee that you’ll get on to the next: “This is one of the most competitive jobs in the country,” says O’Rourke. “In our chambers we get 400 applicants for one pupillage.”
www.barcouncil.org.uk

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