ABSTRACT
But the means of escape are still there. They require, first and foremost, that the Bar acknowledge the straits it is in. While the leadership of the Bar Council has shown a far less defensive face to government in the drafting and passage of the Access to Justice Act 1999 than it has in the past shown to measures which threatened the Bar's prosperity, it still has to grasp the nettle of access to pupillage. This has two aspects: the first is equitable consideration of candidates, which I have now considered in some detail; the second is relief from economic hardship while pupillage is completed. Until pupillage is reached, students may have to continue to find funding where they can. After it is completed, they must expect to compete for work without cushioning. But the Bar has a clear moral obligation, once it has accepted them on its vocational course, to enable them at least to complete their vocational training. First, then, the Bar has to make it a breach of professional etiquette to refuse without good cause to take a pupil. Good cause may be as personal as a personality clash or as impersonal as the physical or organisational capacity of chambers; but the ground rule for chambers admission procedures has to be that a qualified
junior barrister has an obligation to help to train the next generation of the Bar, not merely the next tenant in his or her own chambers. In turn this means that PACH, at present in a parlous state for want of full support, may have to be restored by rule, so that every BVC student who wants a pupillage has an equal chance of getting one-indeed, is guaranteed one.
