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Working class students

get all kinds of mixed messages when investigating their chances of becoming a lawyer

The Bar Council

STI Describes new careers site, Become-a-barrister.com as a "portal for anyone interested in a career at the helm," the retro design objective, it is more like a portal to the 1990s.

The trip down memory lane begins with a series of video clips look and sound like that, they were produced by those responsible for sex education with video as a teenager, I Sat Some continue with her low-budget animation designed to create the look That feeling happy lawyers are just a bunch of potatoes, and tour year with the FAQ page that appears to have been set up by someone years excl one hour introduction to the Internet race.

Get the look, though, and the actual content of the site is surprisingly good. While the case studies, unfussily Which board the trip of young lawyers from diverse backgrounds of the working class to build a career in the bar, the Bar Council has FulFil stated purpose for the site of "Demystifying entry to the profession . "

Yet the style goes a long way. And for me the main message carrier by Become-a-barrister.com Is that cares enough about the bar Devote resources to encourage diversity of its own.

This is unfortunate because the message is not entirely accurate. Over the past two decades has worked hard to expand the bar the access of women and ethnic minorities, becoming a nearly all white-male enclave, in a profession where 10% of members are of black or ethnic (BME) background (significantly higher than the figure for the population as a whole 7.9%) and 34% are women.

One way he did is followed by gender and ethnicity information on STI practitioners, and the edition to include a complete breakdown of BME backgrounds - something most city solicitors firm "refuse to do. This explains why blacks are overrepresented Probably the bar (which constitute 2.4% of independent lawyers, compared to 2% of the general population), the target under-represented at City law firms (which are only a 2% of all lawyers City, despite the fact that 9.2% of lawyers to the theory these are the group overall BME).

ute, when it comes to socio-economic diversity, referring to the mentality by Become-a-out terminal is barrister.com Indeed, with the bar still dominated by private education. An investigation revealed that two thirds of the lawyers in the room cams top of this background, the information this information for purposes not officially recorded and published throughout the profession means that it is not possible 'verifiable figures currently accurate.

To date, the bar has to remedy this situation by trying Wanted to change the perceptions of a year boys club ", the logic will less affluent students are taken out of Career Barristers Continuing Because they believe, wrongly, that it is not for 'em to do it. Become-a-barrister.com is an example of this strategy - although this one looks to have turned against them. Another is the annual "investment plan bar," Bar Council, which has been running this week in collaboration with the Social Mobility Foundation and the Inns of Court. He sees around 60 high-achieving students in public schools perform poorly matched with lawyers for several days of observation at work. As students are listening to talks by senior members of the profession, short and participate in the expectation of an awareness-raising exercise per year. " / Aa> While such initiatives help year degrees, they ignore a large enough barrier preventing students from backgrounds current joining the less wealthy of the bar: the prohibitive cost of legal education (the School Bar, which is wannabe lawyers in the late funeral Their law degrees from the first cycle, costs about £ 16,000). Due to the nature of the independent bar, prospective lawyers' fees are usually required to cover thesis.

Unfortunately, his quest is made more by the fact that the difficulty out of the oven only two inns, Inner Temple and Middle Temple, consider the "need" by some of their rewards. Lincoln Inn and Gray's Inn is only to assess what they term "merit". They argued This is necessary to enable the bar to compete with other sectors to attract top talent.