Chancery Pupillage Event

The Chancery Bar Association is committed to widening access to the Bar and to building a more diverse profession. We know that many Chancery Chambers are reaching out to students who might not traditionally have considered a career at the Chancery Bar. However, it is apparent to all that progress is painfully slow.

Worrying new research commissioned by the Bar Standards Board indicates that students who are Black, Asian or of an ethnic minority, or who come from less well-off backgrounds, have substantially reduced chances of obtaining pupillage compared with white or more privileged students with the same qualifications and experience.

The issue is larger than any one Chambers can tackle independently, and it seems to us that the Chancery Bar must work together to create a fairer and more equal system for prospective pupils. With this in mind, the Association would welcome the views of Chancery Chambers as to how best to get the message across to students that the Chancery Bar is genuinely open to all who have the potential to thrive at it. For example, should the Association run a separate Chancery Careers Fair, as it has done in the past, or is it better for Chancery Chambers to be well represented at the Bar Council’s Careers Fair? Can and should more be done by the Chancery Bar by way of participation at Bar-wide events? Is the Chancery Bar really doing everything it can to ensure fair selection processes, or are there examples of particular good practice which might usefully be shared? Would it be better if more Chancery sets managed their recruitment of pupils through the Bar Council’s Pupillage Gateway, rather than individual sets continuing to run their own bespoke selection processes?

The meeting will involve members of the ChBA committee, the Bar Council’s Education and Training Committee, and Bar Council policy staff. Refreshments provided!