I have to admit the news that One Essex Court is to pay its pupils an award of £60,000 arouses a trace of envy in me – perhaps not entirely unrelated to the fact that my pupillage award was £10,000, and that now as a third six pupil somehow I'm earning even less than that.

Even with the huge debts that so many of us come to the Bar with, £60,000 is a massive amount. And £60,000 is just the basic payment. In addition to that, One Essex Court pupils will receive earnings from the second six of as much as £13,000. And let's not forget that pupillage awards paid in the first six months are tax-exempt – hence the common practice (among non-criminal sets) to offer a larger proportion of the award in the first six. One Essex Court will pay its pupils £40,000 in the first six (tax-free), with the remaining £20,000 paid in the second-six (subject to tax, alongside any additional earnings).

Clearly One Essex Court wants to attract the best and brightest candidates – which is fair enough, particularly as they must feel a pressure to compete with magic circle and US law firms for prospective recruits. But the top award for a training contract is £40,000 in the first year, so why offer so much more than that?

While I have no hard feelings against those students who manage to secure lucrative commercial pupillage deals, this dramatic salary hike comes with a couple of major downsides for the profession as a whole. Firstly, it increases the (admittedly already pretty wide) divide between the commercial Bar and barristers specialising in other areas, particularly the publicly funded ones, adding to the perception that commercial work requires the best brains while crime and common law work just needs barristers to act as mouthpieces in court.

Also, widely publicised £60,000 starting salaries aren't likely to do anything to improve the current problem of too many people signing up to do the Bar Vocational Course (BVC) without a realistic hope of obtaining a pupillage. BVC providers need to emphasise that these salaries are the very rare exception to the rule – a rule which, as I can testify, is that new entrants to the Bar often have to endure several years of financial hardship, if they're lucky enough to secure a pupillage at all.

Rebecca Vanstone is a third six pupil at 3 Temple Gardens

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