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I Post-Lockdown Review the Junior Junior Bar on the Frontline
POST-LOCKDOWN REVIEW: THE JUNIOR JUNIOR BAR ON THE FRONTLINE
By Lily Walker-Parr, 5RB, and Oliver May, No 5 Barristers Chambers
The last year has been an incredibly challenging time for the Bar as a whole, but it is difficult to imagine a more challenging time to practise at the most junior end. Junior barristers (and in particular those funded by legal aid work) play an essential role in our legal system. ‘Junior juniors’ tend to deal with urgent matters, meet lay clients on a near daily basis, and travel significant distances on public transport. All of this is rewarded by an income highly dependent on a healthy diet of often-low-paying work.
As the pandemic took hold in March 2020, a picture quickly emerged of widespread financial uncertainty for barristers owing to fears about chambers’ stability and allocation of work. The cohort ineligible for the government’s selfemployed scheme, which included the very newest practitioners, felt these fears most acutely. This was coupled with health and safety concerns of those compelled to attend court in person – whether due to the nature of the hearing, a court estate unprepared for widespread remote hearings, financial concerns or, for many pupils, fear (unfounded or not) of jeopardising tenancy decisions.
Most significant was the effect of the pandemic on mental health. Forty-five per cent of pupils reported that the pandemic presented a significant challenge to their wellbeing, and one can only assume that this is reflected across the Bar as a whole. The support and collegiality enjoyed by our small but sociable profession, formerly the most robust mitigant of well being concerns, was significantly undermined when it was forced behind a veneer of Zoom and Microsoft Teams. (We can all agree that lunch with a colleague or a pint after a hard day in court just cannot be replicated online.)
As life begins its slow ascent to normality (or, at least, the ‘new normal’), it is important to reflect upon how the profession supported its most vulnerable members. A recent survey shines a positive light on chambers’ efforts to provide the best training and supervision possible in the circumstances, and this deserves to be recognised as no mean feat. The Young Bar Committee of the Bar Council championed – and continues to champion – the issues affecting the junior Bar. The financial lifeline offered by the Inns and other organisations such as the Barristers’ Benevolent Association is also to be applauded.
However, there is still work to do: many junior practitioners are still recovering financially; new tenants are only just meeting colleagues and belatedly settling into life in chambers; and all are trying to develop their embryonic practices, which, to date, have felt the impact of months of missed networking and in-person court opportunities.
We have asked junior practitioners what barriers they faced, what they did to overcome them, and who or what helped them along the way. It is important that we learn from these experiences – the good, bad and ugly – so that we may grow as a profession, and perhaps so that we are better prepared should this ever happen again. These are their stories.
TIERNAN FITZGIBBON, FIVE PAPER Call – 2018 Practice Area – Civil Circuit – South-East
We all have a list of what the worst things about lockdown were. The interminable walks. The Great Flour Shortage of 2020. Trying to figure out whether bumping elbows, kicking feet or waving manically was the best way of greeting people. For some, that list also includes remote hearings. I appreciate there are concerns regarding the gravitas of the judicial process being lost, technological unfairness to litigants in person and the myriad other concerns that have been raised. That is not to say, however, that there are not benefits too and, as a junior barrister, I could not be more in favour of remote hearings for precisely one reason: 2 minutes and 40 seconds. That is my current shortest hearing in lockdown. In normal times, that would have involved more than five hours of travel and my entire day. That it was being held remotely meant that I could attend from the comfort of home, could make another hearing (and so helping make the court system work more efficiently) and get on with the rest of my (never-ending) workload. So, yes, remote hearings do have their issues. But as a plea from the junior Bar to those in charge of listing, recognise the issues with remote hearings but work to make them better, rather than getting rid of them entirely. They are time- and cost-efficient for the courts, for the clients and especially for the barristers appearing in front of you.
KATE TEMPLE-MABE, 7BR Call – 2018 Practice Areas – Civil, Family and Crime Circuit – Midlands and South-East
As some colleagues welcome a new dawn of remote everything, I have found myself looking forward to at least a partial return to ‘in person’. I have found working as a junior junior during the pandemic an isolating and sometimes lonely experience. I miss the camaraderie of the robing room, the Inn, and the local pub or restaurant – spaces for building connections and sharing support with my colleagues. It has been difficult to grow a professional network in the absence of real-life events and seminars, and without being able to meet instructing solicitors in the flesh. I worry my fledgling advocacy skills have suffered from a toocomfy, suit-only-on-the-top-half, always-sitting-down approach: one minute you’re having a cup of tea on the couch, and the next you are in the Crown Court with your living room or kitchen clearly on display behind you, without the added gravitas of a wig and gown. I have not been doing the job I thought I would be doing, in a practical sense. I’m looking forward to having that back.
There are some positives to my pandemic pupillage. Many of the most fear-inducing aspects of a ‘normal’ pupillage have fallen away: I have not had to navigate the politics of chambers parties; I have not spent long train journeys desperately trying to make engaging small talk; and I had the benefit of knowing that, if needed, I could cry from the comfort of my own home after my first court appearance.
Of course, there have been times where the pandemic has got in the way. I can count on two hands the number of times I have set foot in a court building this year. While this means I have saved money on travel, I have no doubt lost out on countless learning opportunities that my predecessors took for granted.
Overall, I feel content that I have had a well-rounded experience that has provided the necessary preparation for a career as a barrister. However, as decision day fast approaches, I am increasingly conscious that it may be harder to win a popularity contest of yes/no votes when most of the voters have only ‘met’ you as a small, silent square on their computer screen.
HELENA SPECTOR, RED LION Call – 2019 Practice Area – Crime Circuit – South-East
I started on my feet one week before the national lockdown. Although my co-pupils and I were given the option of not going to court and were not pressurised either way, we all decided to keep going. Much has been written about the impact on COVID-19 on the court system in general, but little has been written about the failures of the magistrates’ court system to deal with the pandemic administratively. The early months of the pandemic were chaotic. Cases were adjourned, relisted, listed elsewhere or simply removed from lists overnight, with no notice. London magistrates’ courts cannot be contacted via telephone and emails were misplaced in the generic inboxes that serve several courts. We would often be sent to a court and travel across London entirely pointlessly. On other days, a court would list in excess of 20 cases and would sit past 20.00. I was enormously supported by my chambers, my co-pupils and other junior barristers, and many of my experiences of those early hearings were positive and encouraging. But the system was contingent on the goodwill, flexibility and commitment of junior barristers and defence solicitors going to court for £50 on the off-chance their matter would be heard. That said, I learned a lot about diplomacy in my daily negotiations with the North London Magistrates’ Court listings office.
MALVIKA JAGANMOHAN, ST IVES Call – 2017 Practice Area – Family Circuit – Midlands
I’ve been a tenant in chambers for nearly 18 months. Fourteen of those months have been during a global pandemic.
Did I expect my career at the Bar to start off like this? No. How do I feel about it? Conflicted.
There are, of course, some pros.
Four-hour round trips to get to court are now the exception rather than the rule, and I actually have the time to sleep for more than a few hours every day rather than stumbling home late and straight into the next day’s brief. I can roll out of bed shortly before a video hearing and pop a shirt on (the trackies stay though, of course). For a telephone hearing, I do not need to roll out of bed at all.
So, it is not all bad.
But when I came to the Bar, this is not what I imagined being a barrister would be like.
I did not expect to be advising clients about the prospect of their children being removed over the phone. I did not expect to be able to hear them sobbing on a remote link, feeling helpless to reassure them from a distance. I did not expect to be sitting in a conference room, unable to make out their facial expressions because they are wearing a mask. I did not expect to be making submissions on a blurry video connection where each point arrives a couple of minutes after I said it. I did not expect to be spending most of my time alone, isolated from my peers and colleagues.
Eighteen months in, I still struggle to feel like a barrister.
I want to be able to wander into chambers after a difficult day at court and wail to my room-mates about the judge. I want to be able to look my clients in the eye before huge decisions are made about their lives. I want to be able to stand up in court and learn to become like the advocates I had admired from afar, not a fuzzy image on a screen.
I would like that back, please.
At the start of the first lockdown, I had been on my feet two weeks. I carried on attending court through the first lockdown. The workload was light – a few times a week, I would go to a magistrates’ court to do a remand hearing for a defendant who needed representation in person. As the lockdown wore on and more clients were able to be represented remotely, I would often be in court watching others appear over the new Cloud Video Platform (CVP) to make a bail application or plea in mitigation. I quickly lost count of the number times I saw a lay bench nod through their submissions, never telling the defence advocate they could barely hear half of what was being said because of a bad link. Technology may have kept defendants moving through the courts, but that is not the same as ‘the wheels of justice continuing to turn’. My impression, during the pandemic and since, is that too many lay justices and legal advisors seem not to know the difference. My hope for the coming months is that I can continue to build my practice from this highly unusual start.
RESOURCES:
Inner Temple Hardship funds for pupils and first-year practitioners: www.innertemple.org.uk/news/covid-19-schemefor-pupils-and-first-year-tenants/ Inner Temple Hardship Fund for members who do not qualify for SEISS: www.innertemple.org.uk/news/covid-19-schemefor-hardship-outside-the-terms-of-seiss/ Mental Health and Wellbeing at the Bar: wellbeingatthebar.org.uk Bar Council Pupillage Helpline: PupilHelpline@BarCouncil.org.uk Online Training for Young Barristers: ybc@barcouncil.org.uk Bar Council Coronavirus Advice and Updates: www.barcouncil.org.uk/useful-information/ coronavirus-advice-and-updates.html Bar Council Coronavirus Queries: C19WG@barcouncil.org.uk Government COVID-19 Guidance: gov.uk/coronavirus
SOURCES:
www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/81-of-chambers-will-foldwithin-a-year-bar-council-survey-finds/5103761.article www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/self-employed-package-woefullyinsufficient-say-junior-barristers/5103687.article COVID19 Survey of Pupils, the Bar Council, March 2021
OSCAR DAVIES, LAMB CHAMBERS Call – 2018 Practice Area – Civil Circuit – South-East
My second six started just as lockdown was fully implemented (February 2020). This meant that I almost got no ‘on my feet’ advocacy experience during a time when it was crucial. This was challenging for obvious reasons but compounded when I was not taken on at the end of pupillage.
I then did a third six starting in October 2020 and, fortunately, at this point I had five to eight hearings per week, although most of these were conducted virtually. I was able to show my skills and was taken on as a tenant at Lamb Chambers a month early.
When I was taken on in February 2021, I elected to have my name written on chambers’ board as ‘Mx Oscar Davies’, which uses a gender-neutral honorific. As someone who is non-binary, this seemed the most appropriate form to include my name, amongst ‘Mr’ ‘Ms’ ‘Miss’ and ‘Dr’.
Given that this may have been the first time that ‘Mx’ was used on a chambers’ board, it became a ‘legal first’ and was reported in The Times, Reuters and Legal Cheek. Though to me it is somewhat of an arbitrary detail, I do think it is important that there is visibility at the Bar of people from all walks of life. We should try to reflect the public we represent.
Given that we were still in lockdown and I was not physically in chambers much, I had no idea how it would be received by the profession and my new colleagues, many of whom I have still not met. Fortunately, the response thus far has been (generally) positive, and I am grateful to my peers and the Bar more broadly for supporting me. Now I am enjoying getting on with practice as lockdown lifts and dealing with my (sometimes hectic) diary! An unexpected positive outcome of the pandemic is that I have had the time to create and develop my Instagram (@nonbinarybarrister), where I share insights on trans/non-binary law.
