What should we do with all the Young Lawyers ?
The fact that there are more would be trainees and pupils than training contracts and pupillage is very well known. If it was difficult to become a Barrister or Solicitor 30 years ago it is now immeasurably more so.
The increase in the number of graduates in law and the huge increase in places available on the BPTC means that there is huge competition for a place in chambers. Very many well qualified graduates are being turned away.
When I qualified in 1978 life was much more straightforward. Although I had made an application for pupillage I had not pursued it too vigorously and was not too concerned about whether I went straight to the Bar. In fact I secured a job at Ferranti, then a vibrant and international electronics company, and only when a chambers I had written to, many months before, suggested that I go for an interview (and subsequently offered me pupillage) did I finally decide to come to the Bar.
Pupillage was unpaid and new tenants did not earn a great deal, however I was not burdened with any student debt, all my fees, including those for my Bar Finals, were met by my local authority and additionally I received a modest grant. For someone who had no connections with the law coming to the Bar was a challenge financially (though less so than now) but in other respects was entirely achievable.
How things have changed. I have become much more aware of this because of the new model of working that I have adopted and see the large numbers of would be barristers and solicitors who would make perfectly competent lawyers whose hopes are being dashed time after time.
Many of these young lawyers would make excellent practitioners and are desperate for the breaks that will enable them to follow their chosen career. The availability of pupillages is however limited, so that hundreds of those qualifying for the Bar each year have no prospect of getting pupillage. This is not because they are not good enough to practise at the Bar but because they cannot gain the pupillage which they need to in order to practise
Obviously the profession cannot hope to accommodate every applicant for pupillage but there is more that individual barristers and chambers can do.
There is a new cadre of professionals that has emerged- paralegals. The term originates in the US and used to refer to those who were hoping to make a career in the law and were working in law firms but who were not yet (or might not be) lawyers. The concept is of course not new – solicitors have for years relied on legal executives who trained on the job and became very adept at the law without having ever formally studied it.
Barristers and chambers have not, so far, embraced the concept in great numbers. They should. At a time when the pressures on lawyers to reduce costs are significant and when the Bar has to become more competitive, the use of paralegals or legal assistants has much to recommend it.
It may also become an accepted route into the profession. At present the decision to take pupils who will often go on to tenancy and thus, effectively, owners of the business that is chambers is taken on quite limited information. Initial sifting of the hundreds of potential applicants is often, of necessity, abbreviated and the consequence is that entry into the profession is very much affected by chance, given that the overwhelming number of applicants will be suitably qualified and perfectly capable of developing a career at the bar.
I have used the services of legal assistants now for nearly three years. Of course I recognise that as a busy silk I may have more resources in order to employ those in this position but, certainly on a chambers basis, taking on legal assistants is an idea whose time has come.
Those who know I work in this way ask how I do it and what assistance I get in this way. Of course when I started this I was not sure how it would work but I did know that I spent a lot of time doing non productive work and that much of my time was spent doing things which could be done by others – certainly in the preparatory stages.
So I use my assistants (2 at any one time generally who will have undertaken the BPTC or LPC) to undertake casework, including preparing summaries of cases and of medical reports and the like. They will undertake initial analysis of new cases to give me an idea of what the case is about and how much preparation time I will need before a conference of the like. They will also typically prepare summaries of medical records and analyse the same breaking them down so that I can see the history of any particular case.
Naturally they also undertake quite a lot of legal research and help me keep up to date in changes in practice and procedure.
In terms of administration they produce attendance notes of most conferences – often regarded as a bonus for the hard pressed solicitor who is saved at least one task after a conference to review a case. They also prepare first drafts of and administer all my conditional fee agreements and undertake a great deal of liaison with my clerks and solicitors. In addition to undertaking administrative tasks such as keeping track of my expenses for VAT and tax purposes.
But there work is much wider than this and they are very active in assisting with practice development writing first drafts of articles (not this one!) and producing materials for seminars and overseeing website development in conjunction with specialist PR and marketing consultants.
They have proved invaluable and more than that add significantly to the service I can offer clients whilst at the same time I hope adding to their knowledge of the law and hopefully marking themselves out through working on my cases as better prospects for pupillage.
But this may only be the start and for many chambers and barristers making more use of paralegals and legal assistants offers the opportunity to work more productively, to better assess those who will eventually become members of chambers (or work in whatever vehicle becomes the norm for a barrister’s practice) whilst at the same time potentially offering the opportunity to deliver services at lower cost and importantly offering some hope and more opportunity to those able graduates who aspire to be fully fledged lawyers of a career in the law and more specifically at the bar.
Gerard McDermott QC
A postscript from the ‘Legals’
Benefits for the ‘Legals’
Being a legal assistant to a top personal injury silk who has ‘a zeal for advancing new legal issues and is willing to push them’ (Personal injury Legal 500 2010) is an experience that should not be underestimated. We both have been fortunate in that we have been given the opportunity to gain the skills that will provide us with a solid foundation for our future practice and have daily exposure to life at the Bar. Our role is similar to that of a pupil in that we attend court and conferences, undertake research, summarise cases and produce first drafts of documents such as skeleton arguments, schedules and CFAs. We also understand those ‘hidden’ areas of practice such as the relationship between Barrister and Clerk, diary management and times and fees. Going beyond that we have had the opportunity to build and maintain good relationships with solicitors and senior juniors and have been given a valuable insight to the role of the expert witness and how to handle them to obtain a constructive outcome. Overall the experience is invaluable for obtaining pupillage and for those many years of practice ahead of us.
Holly-Ann Shaw
Christopher Smith