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As someone who had the misfortune of doing the Bar Course in the mid-1990s, my experiences of the Bar and trying to get pupillage etc are at odds with what is alleged now. It was shortly after the legal action which led to the ICSL having to find an extra 400 or so places on its course. The irony was that a lot of people who hadn't got onto the Bar Course initially had actually got first-class degrees as well as pupillages lined up but they did not have good A Level grades which seemed somewhat baffling!

Doing the Bar Course itself was an unpleasant experience with students split between those in the know and those not in the know. Needless to say that students not in the know were more friendly whereas those who had secured pupillage were cautious and watchful and never ever let on how they had got their pupillages. Recall the article in The Times in 1996 where someone spoke of those 'magical Oxbridge keys' as well as the other people who had made their own luck. The example was given of 'Freddie' who had attended a wedding where his Pupil Master gave a speech, saying, "When I first saw young Freddie, I thought no way, but then I realised that he was a member of my son's flying club." Make of that what you will.

Of course, trying to get pupillage was even more unpleasant, even accepting that there were a lot of applicants for every pupillage. There seemed to be a strange hostility from Pupillage Committees particularly towards well-educated, middle-class, red brick university applicants and many people complained of being insulted and made to feel stupid during pupillage interviews. This also led a lot of people to question as to whether everything was so wonderful about the Bar as they had previously been led to believe. In relation to the thorny question, it did appear that more young ladies than men were getting pupillage (even non-Oxbridge young females) which led to suspicions of favouritism which strangely were not picked up by the press at that time.

So the conclusions about the Bar from that would be that it has traditionally been an elitist profession. For non-Oxbridge people, it is still a very hard profession to get into. On the face of it, there is no single way to actual assess how good an aspiring Barrister is. Inevitably, many people will focus their annoyance on those whom they consider did not get into the Bar solely on merit. Whilst it may appear superficially that the Bar still favours white males, it cannot be said that women or ethnic minorities are entirely unrepresented at the Bar. So any articles or initiatives such as this one should take account of the unflattering, non-public face of the Bar as well.