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I'm a trainee solicitor, albeit older and uglier than most, having had a public sector career first.

I understand the logic in having a centrally-set and invigilated exam, as there are perverse incentives for organisations to encourage grade inflation.

I am however very skeptical that 'diversity' will be aided by changing the system. The only logic offered by the SRA for this is that their new system will purportedly remove what they call the 'LPC gamble', i.e. candidates undertaking the LPC without a training contract.

I have two questions for those with more experience than me (i.e. most people):

First, surely no firms are going to take people on without them having completed an equivalent to the LPC first, whatever it's called? If so doing 'SQE1' -whatever it comprises - isn't going to be enough to change who firma recruit? What am I missing?

Second, the following comment was made by a barrister on another site. It suggests that to honestly make 'diversity' work, schools and universities need to improve the quality of the candidates coming through, and that the profession can - and by inference should - do little. It refers to the bar, but can be construed mutatis mutandis for solicitors, too. To what extent are their arguments valid?

"The lack of ‘diversity’ at the Bar can be explained by the lack of good-quality BME applicants coming through the system. This is more than evident from the BSB’s own figures:

Between 2011 and 2013, 1,963 white students completed the BPTC. Of those, 296 (15.1%) attained a grade of ‘Outstanding’, whilst 108 (5.5%) failed the course altogether.

Over the same period, 376-386* black students completed the BPTC. Of those, just 2 – 8 (0.5 – 2.1%) attained a grade of ‘Outstanding’, whilst 88 (22.8 – 23.4%) failed the course altogether.

Put another way, white candidates are approximately 4x less likely to fail the BPTC than their black counterparts, and somewhere between 7 and 30x more likely to get an Outstanding. Given that the BSB’s own figures show that BPTC grade is a far better predictor of gaining pupillage than either degree grade or university attended, it’s little wonder that so few black students are getting pupillage.

People can argue that black people have fewer opportunities in early life and that this impacts their GCSE grades, A-level grades, University attended etc. People can likewise argue that pupillage committees are inherently biased and therefore subconsciously discriminate against black candidates. But, for all its faults, the BPTC is an extremely well-standardised course. Everyone, regardless of background, has access to the same teaching and access to the same course materials. Likewise, for the most part, everyone sits the same, blindly-marked exams. And yet, despite all of this, white candidates still significantly out-perform their black counterparts.

Clearly, therefore, any attempt to promote diversity for diversity’s sake – at least at the BPTC/Pupillage stage – is foolish and misguided. Given the current pool of candidates available, a system which solely rewards merit must necessarily come at the expense of diversity. This may be a bitter pill for the politically correct brigade to swallow, but the facts speak for themselves; the data clearly show a significant gap in the average aptitude of white and black applicants, and therefore we should EXPECT a significant gap in attainment.

Now, I am not suggesting that the Bar should abandon its commendable attempts to tear down barriers and improve ACCESS to the Bar. It might be the case, for example, that for whatever reason gifted black students are simply less likely to apply to the BPTC than their white counterparts. Indeed, speaking as someone who myself comes from a ‘non-traditional background’, I have no doubt that some such barriers continue to exist; and no candidate should be led to believe that their creed, colour or gender makes them any better or worse suited to a career at the Bar. However, it’s important not to oversimplify the problem and blindly ascribe a lack of diversity in the profession to systemic prejudice.

It’s likewise important to recognise that promoting ACCESS is not the same as promoting DIVERSITY. All too often people conflate the two. The first speaks to opportunity whereas the second speaks to results. Our only duty is to level the playing field, not the score.

Moreover, access aside, it is undoubtedly the case that there is a disproportionately large number of poor-quality black candidates applying to the BPTC. The figures clearly show that, whatever it is that explains the lack of good-quality black candidates, it is NOT a belief in the black community that the Bar is closed to people of colour. Therefore, we need to be very careful to ensure that we are sending the right message – namely, “the Bar is open to all people who have the ability, regardless of their colour”, NOT “we need more black candidates pursuing a career at the Bar”. In other words, what we need is a colour-blind system, NOT this ridiculous, facile, intellectually dishonest, politically-driven system we currently have, which is absolutely OBSESSED with people’s ethnicities and increasing ‘diversity’.

In this regard, I am sorry to say that LC is very much part of the problem. Every article questions why there are so few black barristers, rather than why there are so few good-quality black candidates. I have read many articles lamenting the underrepresentation of minority groups at the Bar. However, I have never read any acknowledgement whatsoever of the marked disparity in attainment between different ethnic groups at the application stage.

The BSB, Media and scorned students can whinge, whine, bleat and screech all they want, but sets of chambers will NOT start recruiting sub-par applicants simply because it promotes diversity in the profession. Unlike law firms, for example, chambers are far less invested in promoting a politically correct corporate message, and thus far more invested in recruiting candidates based on merit alone.

Please abandon this relentless and myopic pursuit of ‘diversity’. And please, please, please, PLEASE, for the LOVE OF GOD, stop assuming that differences in attainment between whites/blacks, males/females, state-school/public school, northerners/southerners, gay/straight, left-handed/right-handed are always and necessarily attributable to systemic prejudice. It’s statistics 101: correlation does not imply causation, and just because any one group is underrepresented at the Bar, it does not necessarily mean that that group is discriminated against.

*When the number of students falling into a particular category is particularly low, the BSB merely states the number as being ‘

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