Guest Blog: Barriers remain for non-traditional students wishing to become barristers
5 May 2016

The first detailed study into the role of the Inns of Court in
increasing social mobility finds that students from non-traditional
backgrounds continue to face serious challenges to access the
profession, despite the efforts of the profession, universities and
other organisations.
The study, funded by Keele University and the Honourable Society
of the Inner suggests these challenges stem from a number of
sources, including gaps in understanding of the profession amongst
the students themselves, universities and the profession, the
career advice given to students interested in the Bar and financial
constraints which make it difficult for students to undertake work
experience.
It highlights the difficulties that some universities may
experience in negotiating the line between providing balanced,
realistic and accurate careers advice and reinforcing
stereotypically perceived constraints about the
profession.
But what is the solution?
The report recommends that the Bar build a dialogue with
universities to make it clear that recruitment is based on merit
rather than educational establishment or background, while, at the
same time, exploring strategies to address the ways in which
educational establishment and background continue to shape
opportunities for access to the profession.
It calls on those in the profession to do more to help
non-traditional students, by offering expenses to students on
mini-pupillages, for example. It also finds that more should be
done to ensure that those in the profession who have the
responsibility for administering mini-pupillage schemes gain a
better understanding of social mobility, educational disadvantage
and the alternative paths that students from non-traditional
backgrounds may have taken before applying to the Bar.
The study draws on the experience of students who participated
in the Inner Temple's Pegasus Access and Support Scheme (PASS) (www.pegasus.me), a programme
designed to support students from underrepresented backgrounds into
the profession, in part by helping them to find a mini-pupillage
and covering the associated expenses to allow them to complete it.
The report shows that PASS works very well in increasing mutual
exposure between non-traditional aspirant entrants and
chambers.
As Dr Elaine Freer, who authored the report, says what is clear
is that we need more mutual understanding between potential
students, higher education, and the Bar to ensure that gifted
students from non-traditional backgrounds do not slip through the
net. Inner Temple's work goes some way to addressing this by
administering a scheme which offers mini-pupillages on the basis of
potential and achievement wider than academic qualifications. Such
experience of the profession provides a forum in which
stereotypical views held by both non-traditional aspirant entrants
and the profession can be challenged.
Traditional thoughts on work experience might prevent those
sitting on interview panels from recognising the depth and breadth
of experience that underrepresented students might have gained
through other means. Our understanding of what merit is and
how it is applied is often ill-defined. Interview and selection
panels must be clear on what they are looking for. Otherwise the
experiences of underrepresented groups can often be
overlooked.
As gatekeepers to the profession and the only bodies that can
call students to the Bar of England and Wales, the Inns of Court
play an important role in creating access to the profession and
educating future barristers. Since 2009, the Inner Temple has
established a wide range of outreach initiatives to work towards a
more diverse profession and this report shows that our programmes
are transformational for individual students. The report is also
challenging reading about what more can be done and we will not shy
away from these challenges.
Read the full report here
https://issuu.com/theinnertemple/docs/22113_innertemple_final_report__2_/1
Struan Campbell, Outreach Manager at The Honourable
Society of the Inner Temple