Uni advice for potential barrister

[HecticHettie]

School and websites have given a lot of what I have now come to believe may be duff advice so I hope Mumsnet can help. My highly academic daughter wants to be a barrister and numerous well-meaning friends have told her to study another subject first then convert to law. However, when we went to uni open days (Oxford, Cambridge, King’s and Durham) we were explicitly told that if you want to be a high-flying barrister (not solicitor), studying law at undergraduate is pretty much essential if you want to keep all specialisms open. Apparently you can be a barrister by converting later but are restricted to family law etc (less
legal heavy). I am so confused as seen so many posts and people seem to confuse advice for barristers and solicitors. I would be grateful to hear from barrister parents only

If she wants to be a barrister in a competitive field her academic record will have to be outstanding. Undergrad doesn't matter, but she'll need a first and a masters at least.

@waitingforthebus Undergrad matters a hell of a lot. Someone trying to get pupilage with CCC at A level and a degree in Marketing is just not going to compete with a first from Cambridge in Law or Clsssics. Or even a serious academic degree. They all want a high level of intellect and academic rigour.

I tend to agree that GDL for the very bright is fine and there are masters to hone law skills if needed. As I said earlier, Oxbridge ones are sought after. You would be very lucky to get a place on one with any degree from anywhere. These are usually done pre oupillage. Also you can see Blackstone, One Essex Court, Fountain Court and Brick Court are no longer 100% Oxbridge at new tenant level. 5 Chsmbers are but not them. Legal Cheek has data on 30 Chambers. They are the touted go to list of magic circle chambers. Others are available.

I am not a lawyer, but feel it important to suggest for any lurkers that the Bar is both incredibly competitive but also can be accessible. There are niche areas of practice and not all jobs are in London. Equally not all jobs pay that well. It can be a very precarious profession.

In real life I have known: a very successful patent lawyer who read chemistry at Imperial, and whose degree has probably helped him more than a law degree would have; a housing expert whose career started within the housing department of a local authority; and a busy, popular and bright criminal barrister who studied somewhere like Brunel and benefitted from an access scheme and from the fact that her clients are almost entirely from the same ethnic background as she is. (They feel they can trust her, and she with her feet in two cultures, does her best.)

The obvious track is an Oxbridge first followed by the mini pupillages etc described above.

That said, someone very keen on becoming a barrister who is bright and good on their feet might research what the Bar Schools offer in the way of access schemes. One example is here:

https://www.middletemple.org.uk/access-bar-award-application-form

Note they say they only consider two applications per university, which suggests they want to consider applications from a wide range of Universities.

The fees earned by the new tenants at the criminal bar can be criminal. The pupilage awards can be low too. So young people need to be very clear about what area of law they should look at. As barristers get more years in they tend to become experts in a narrower practice area. A bit like hospital consultants. You don’t get the heart surgeon operating on your brain.

It’s for the reasons above that young people should research all the opportunities and the inns of court offer residential scholarships, hardship scholarships and GDL and Bar course scholarships and some have big sums attached. Middle I think is the smallest Inn. Also look at Grays, Inner and Lincolns Inn. They are post degree training providers. Plus the bar school providers have scholarship funds too. However all are competitive! They require applications, tests and interviews. The Inns give out £millions every year but it’s for people they believe will succeed. Plenty get next to nothing, but if you get a sizeable scholarship, you really should get pupillage and tenancy. Anyone thinking about being a barrister should do this research. The bar school course costs a lot. You might be able to draw down from an pupilage award from your Chambers, but if you don’t get a scholarship and don’t get pupilage, it’s very expensive.

Plus it’s very wise to know your strengths and interests. If it’s criminal, fine, and definitely play to your strengths. If it’s really not tax and company law, don’t apply for these sets. Again doing research and being the best you can be in your area is what matters. The regional bar operates strongly in Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham but London has way more pupillages on offer.

An off-piste suggestion, but next September look at the London Open House weekend programme and see if any of the Inns of Court or indeed other law buildings are included. This year I visited Middle Temple, really for the beautiful buildings, but noted that working barristers were acting as guides and talking about their work, the role of the Inn etc. I got to chat to a lovely lady in the library who as involved in outreach and education. A brilliant chance to ask some questions had I had more interest in legal careers. The buildings were gorgeous and the Chapel steeped in history.

I know some top barristers from my uni days, and none of them studied law at BA level. This was 30 years ago, so maybe things have changed.

@PurpleChrayn They haven’t really. Mainly because commercial barristers can do suitable masters courses. The Cambridge one is highly favoured. So the very bright can compete. What is slightly changing is there’s a few more from non RG but they are still a tiny minority. Initiatives have not made much of a dent. Diversity targets are another matter.

Open House is definitely worth it. Middle Temple hall is a gem. DDs Inn is currently offering tours for aspiring barristers. Young people are taken round by a member of the education dept or a residential scholar. These are worth looking at too and are 100% aimed at recruitment to the bar and information giving. Bookable on line.

TizerorFizz I applaud your encouragement of all comers to the Bar but your advocacy of the Cambridge courses is, I reckon, misleading.

The LLM only very exceptionally allows graduates in disciplines other than Law to join the course: https://llm.law.cam.ac.uk/admissions/admissions-criteria

The much newer MCL (it's just over ten years old) is slightly more open in that sense but in another is very much more closed. The fees for 2025/26 are a whopping £42k (that's fees only, before adding on £15k for living). This is not an accessible course for any but the super rich.

I may have understated the fees: I think that they're actually £45,150 for 2025/26 - for home students as well as overseas.

(The LLM is a snip by comparison: £24,276 for home, £42,336 for overseas. Plus living expenses).

For students living in the normal world, the MCL in particular isn't an option.

@ThatllBeTheDay if you’ve got a first from Oxbridge in a non-law subject you can get a place on the LLM or BCL (if you can pay obviously!).

OP, I'm a senior barrister in a specialist area of the bar involved in pupil recruitment and which is in competition with the other top chancery/commercial sets for pupils. Your DD would not be prevented from having a career at the Bar if she did decide to study something other than law for university followed by the GDL. I would say there is an almost a 50/50 split between law and non-law graduates in chambers. The ones who didn't study law did a mix of subjects including english, history, philosophy and microbiology. There are more Oxbridge graduates than all other universities combined even though we very much want candidates from other universities to apply. It may be they are put off by the profile of current members, or our area of practice.

If a student wants to read Law at uni there shouldn't be a conversation taking place in school around her applying for MFL instead. People who opt for the subjects which appear on the face of it to be more likely to result in an Oxbridge offer often come unstuck anyway, at one or other stage of the uni process.

I think with the caveat that you have to establish credentials on the law front for both prior to being offered a place.

DD has friends with non law degrees who did one of the Cambridge courses but of course there are others. Many barristers get a year between being offered pupilage and starting. An academic course can be a great use of time and an investment. As I said earlier, there are other avenues they might pursue too such as judicial assistant. I was also trying to let young people know there are quite a few routes to success. It’s also that a MFL degree from Oxbridge is no barrier to success at all. It’s an academic degree and that’s the starting point. What you do after that is what matters and it’s clearly not family law alone. However if DC really prefer the idea of a law degree, do the law degree. Always play to your strengths.

Yes, by having done the GDL usually.

Theres also the senior status law degree (2 year degree) offered by Oxford and Cambridge to post-grads. I know couple of people at the bar who did that having gone to other Russell group unis for undergrad. It’s 1 more year than the GDL route obviously.

But in this case OP’s dd should just do a law degree since that’s what she wants.

Well, by having done the GDL exceptionally well JumpinJellyfish, to add a gloss And even then, it's not slam dunk that you'll be offered a place ahead of those with Oxbridge firsts in law with the associated glowing references from their law tutors, who are probably in the best position to spot a very promising legal brain with a bright legal future.

And after that, the massive fees with limited opportunities for external funding. That's especially true for the MCL (although you restricted your comment to the LLM and BCL).

An academic course can be a great use of time and an investment

Tizer you can only invest money if you have it to begin with. Who has £60k (£45k fees plus £15k living expenses) to sub their kids? This is the mega rich world, not the normal world. It certainly isn't a course which helps access in the generally understood sense of that word.

It’s easy to do exceptionally well in the GDL - would be more unusual not to do so if you had an Oxbridge first, which is the category of people I’m talking about.

Those people will also have glowing references from tutors. If you’re comparing someone with a History PhD from Cambridge (common at the bar) to someone with a Cambridge undergraduate law degree, it’s not a given by any means that the law undergrad would be preferred.

Not sure why you’re chipping away at this. It’s just a fact that you can get on to these courses without having done law, and people do, often.

I'm 'chipping away' at the fact that the courses so often recommended by Tizer are in fact only available to a minute number of people, for a number of reasons (first class degree; Oxbridge; Law/ other; fees). The fact that the fees for this MCL in particular are so huge makes it incompatible with any implication that it is a form of access. So that's mildly irritating to anyone with an interest in access as most people know it.

Of course it's easy to do exceptionally well at the GDL if you have the ability to achieve an Oxbridge first. So it proves not very much in terms of legal ability - by definition. And that may well be why someone with an Oxbridge first in Law could have the edge. Those applying for the LLM or BCL in the final year of their undergraduate degree also have their references written while the tutors have the students fresh in their minds, which helps marginally too.

Are those with History PhDs or DPhils actually that common at the Bar? There are bound to be some - but it's probably a stretch to say that they're 'common'. Very happy to stand corrected if you can point me to say six or seven top sets where several junior juniors have History PhDs. I just haven't seen it myself, but possibly I haven't looked hard enough.

It could well be that you've done the LLM or the BCL recently yourself JumpinJellyfish, or are on the selection board for those degrees. But those young people that I know who've done one or the other recently say that the vast majority of their peers have read Law. And that makes perfect sense.

Underlying all this talk of second undergraduate degrees/ GDLs plus LLM or BCL or MCL is the fact that there seems to be remarkably little recognition that most students need parental help to complete even the BPC, and that's so even if they get the top scholarships from their Inn with a scholarship from their provider in addition. My own DD was in that position (having read Law at Oxford) but we lived a long way from London. Her shortfall for fees and living was around £12k, and she didn't live anywhere remotely glam; a very standard flatshare with three others.

The commercial bar itself is open only to a minute number of the highest academic achievers. If you’re in that category it really doesn’t matter what you did at undergrad level.

There is no magical “legal ability” that is taught or displayed in law undergrad vs English or history or philosophy or classics + GDL which is precisely why the legal
profession (50% of solicitors, a lower but still high % of barristers) is made up
of people who chose this route.

If you look at the juniors called in the last 5 years at the top 5 commercial chambers in London yes, you will find 5+ with Oxbridge humanities PhDs - Im not going to count them or link them but I’ve instructed some of them and know others personally.

The fees question is different - yes they’re ridiculously expensive, a massive money spinner for the universities, and stuffed with international students who have no issue paying the fees (and potentially less stringent entrance requirements…).

I have a non-law double first class degree from Cambridge and had an offer of a place on the Oxford BCL (c. 15 years ago but it was very straightforward) but ultimately went down the solicitor route because my firm paid for everything - law school
fees, living allowance, 2 year training contract, and then stuff like maternity leave thereafter. I don’t regret it at all.

It is a difficult balance between encouraging people to apply, but also explaining the reality. I would have been supportive if any of my solicitor children instead had wanted to be barristers, but I think it was "easier" to qualify as a solicitor (it is never easy of course even for potential solicitors). The funding of the extra post grad year (for solicitors and barristers) for those without an LLB is difficult. I paid for those of my solicitor children who weren't sponsored both for that year and the 2nd post grad year (solicitor exams). Happy to do so but it is certainly expensive even under the (solicitor only) new SQE system.

The fees question is different - yes they’re ridiculously expensive, a massive money spinner for the universities, and stuffed with international students who have no issue paying the fees (and potentially less stringent entrance requirements…)

Well and is the central reason why I've dipped in and 'chipped away'. Tizer clearly wants to encourage, which is great. But for all the talk of the scholarships from the Inns and providers the fact is (and we number crunched on a previous thread), there's a significant input from parents required beyond even the absolute maximum scholarships, even if you're going direct to the Bar course from a law course. The more steps you put into the equation the greater the shortfall, rather obviously. Once you get into the super league of MCL etc - or even the LLM or BCL where funding is more possible, but still thin on the ground - you're out of the reach of exactly those talented students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds who are the target for the widening participation programmes. Showing students around the Inns and talking enthusiastically doesn't magic up the money - and that's what's needed.

JumpinJellyfish I'm less sure than you are that the law tutors who teach the Oxbridge law courses don't also teach legal reasoning to their students. That isn't the same as saying that those students have better minds than their peers reading History or English, or a monopoly of 'legal ability'. The point remains that both Cambridge for the LLM and Oxford for the BCL do make it very clear that their courses are for students who have firsts in Law. There must be some justification for that. And that does seems to match up with what happens on the ground these days at least, even if they make a limited number of exceptions. Clearly you were one, although - deviating here - it's fair to say that double firsts are overwhelmingly the preserve of Cambridge. Oxford humanities and social science students taking all their exams in one hit still only emerge with a paltry first, and I would tend not to dumb them down as against Cambridge degrees. Several of my DC have Oxford firsts but only my youngest can call hers a double because she read Classics and the exams in second year - almost uniquely or possibly uniquely for Oxford - count for the purposes of the double thing. Just saying that there are lots of hidden double firsts out there. Not sure that DD4 will ever be putting 'double' on her CV though. Starred and top of the year - and perhaps that's what you meant - obviously different and again, something one sees regularly on the CVs of juniors at the top sets.

Two of my DC went down the Magic Circle route to get everything paid for, and were only a couple of thousand short each (one read Law at Oxford, the other read History). As you say, that's much more doable than the Bar. The barrister DD was around £12k short a few years ago even maxed out with all the highest value scholarships DD4 with her double first in Classics is absolutely cut out for the Bar but is swerving it (at least for the moment;), and a major plank of her reasoning was the cost of conversion plus the BPC. Clearly it isn't a material consideration for some but for ordinary people it is.

@ThatllBeTheDay legal reasoning is just using logic to apply a particular framework to relevant facts. I’m struggling to think of a degree subject where this kind of analysis is not taught and demonstrated. There is no magic to a law degree. That’s why you don’t need to do one to become a lawyer, even a top barrister.

And yes, those courses are expensive, which you’ve said several times and no one has denied. It is also true though that (a) you don’t have to do them to be a barrister, even at the top sets and (b) you don’t need to study law to get on to them.

May be. I do think on my 3 year LLB we were taught to "think like a lawyer". I am not even sure I can put it into words so am not trying to say I am right or wrong on that.

I agree you don't have to have a law degree for either branch of the profession. In fact so dumbed down has the solicitors' regulator chosen to go that you need a degree or level 6 diploma in any subject, even I suppose knitting studies, then just to pass SQE1 and 2 (okay may be that is a big "just" but SQE1 is 100% multiple choice so you don't even have to be able to write even) and have 2 years work experience giving legal advice which can be abroad and it can even be voluntary work - this is for solicitors. However all the new choice just really makes it harder as more people qualify but cannot then get jobs.

The Barristers course has long been criticised as being a money spinner for the providers and passing vast numbers who will never get pupillage. This is why the scholarships matter. It’s is a big enhancement to the cv. I’m absolutely not saying anything is easy to do. It’s not. I do notice quite a few barristers have masters from top USA unis so not sure if needs blind awards come into play there? It’s also undeniably true that residential scholarships help with living costs.