Parenthood: raising the bar

This is a comprehensive guide for self-employed barristers who are about to begin, or who are already navigating, the daunting juggling act of being both a parent and a practitioner. This is a field which does not traditionally lend itself to such things as morning sickness, parental leave and reading bedtime stories. The authors have pooled (via a 16-question survey) and built on the collective wisdom of 250 barristers, both men and women, across all major practice areas and levels of call. The result is a vital resource which will surely go some way to addressing the higher attrition rate of female barristers, the dominant cause of which is the difficulty of combining practice with being the primary caregiver.  

Baby at the Bar is the tool needed both to identify the matters which should be considered – chambers’ parental leave policies, managing school holidays, for example – and to deal with those things in a way which ensures that having babies and practising as a successful barrister are not mutually exclusive roles. Yet the book goes further than that. It is aimed not only at new and prospective parents but at the wider profession – clerks, colleagues and judges – highlighting and offering solutions to these challenges. 

It also has the virtue of being genuinely engaging. There is a mix of expert guidance and insights from other practitioners with lived experience, and there is a comforting sense that the reader is – perhaps contrary to assumptions – not alone in navigating parenthood while practising. The book is funny, too. The final chapter features experiences such as crayons lodged in wigs while delivering jury speeches. 

Baby at the Bar offers a much-needed route out of the loneliness and anxiety that can creep up on new parents at the bar. 

Zoë Chapman is a barrister at Red Lion Chambers