Ben Rigby reports on the pupillage salary war under way at the commercial Bar

The recent wave of pupillage salary increases at the top commercial barristers' chambers has certainly caused a stir. It started earlier this year with Essex Court Chambers' decision to increase its pupillage salary from £40,000 to £55,000 from October 2010, and was followed by an announcement from One Essex Court that it will pay each of its four new recruits commencing pupillage next year a salary of £60,000 – a 33% increase on the £45,000 award that the set's pupils currently receive.

Subsequently Wilberforce Chambers, Fountain Court Chambers and Four New Square have followed suit with similar increases. Significantly, pupillage awards paid in the first six months are tax-exempt – hence the common practice to offer a larger proportion of the award in the first six. One Essex Court, for example, 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).

Some at the commercial Bar have suggested that the increases were sparked because chambers had been disappointed with the quality of applicants they were getting. But Darren Burrows, senior clerk at One Essex Court,rejects this suggestion: "Chambers has always placed a great value in getting the best people. And we've been very successful at it," he says, pointing out that there is no shortage of demand for places. "Usually we review up to 200 applicants, which we then whittle down to 60 interviewees, to gain four or five successful people. And I think that we've done extremely well with the pupils who have become tenants."

However, the likes of One Essex Court clearly face competition from magic circle and US law firms, which pay their trainees about £40,000 and newly qualified lawyers up to £90,000, while also providing funding through law school. Moreover, being a solicitor offers the security of working in a large organisation where work is guaranteed.

Down the line, commercial barristers' salaries often eclipse those received by City solicitors, but arguably top barristers' chambers needed to do something to distinguish themselves at entry level from law firms.

Financial concerns

One of the most commonly voiced claims is that rising student debt is behind the salary increases. Alex Taylor, director of clerking at Fountain Court, says: "Candidates primarily focus on their long-term prospects. But now, perhaps more than ever, they also have more immediate financial concerns. They usually come with a significant student debt burden, especially if they have completed a post-graduate degree, which is common."

However, this line of argument doesn't take into account the fact that almost all those students who secure pupillages at the leading commercial sets will have benefitted from generous scholarships provided by the Inns of Court, which offer merit-based scholarships alongside the awards they reserve for applicants in particular financial need. These cover not only Bar Vocational Course (BVC) fees – and in some cases Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) fees – but also provide living allowances. "Often our pupils receive scholarships, and of course that's a bonus – but by increasing the size of our award, we're helping them ourselves too," explains Burrows.

None of this is to suggest that the salary increases at commercial chambers are undeserved. Indeed, many claim that junior barristers represent better value for money than their solicitor counterparts.

Jonathan Warne, a commercial litigation partner at Nabarro, says: "Junior members of the Bar are actually very good value. They can help with drafting, especially drafting pleadings, and are cost competitive on those kind of issues that can frequently cost too much to undertake within a law firm. We might produce draft pleadings and we'll ask a junior to polish and finalise these."

While there will clearly be a pressure on all commercial sets to up their pupillage awards in line with Essex Court et al, not everyone will be increasing what they pay their pupils. Andrew Burns, chairman of Devereux Chambers' pupillage committee, says his set's pupillage award will remain at £35,000. "Devereux has always relied on its reputation to attract the best pupils, rather than trying to offer the largest awards and this has been a very successful policy in recent years," he adds.

"We are convinced that the top applicants are more interested in first-rate training and outstanding career opportunities when choosing chambers."

———————————————————————————————————————————————–

A very different picture at the family Bar

Increased pupillage awards are not the norm at the Bar. And it's not only criminal barristers who are struggling when it comes to pay. Recent research reveals that family barristers are pretty hard up too.

A study published earlier this year by Dr Debora Price and Anne Laybourne of King's College London's King's Institute for the Study of Public Policy, entitled The Work of the Family Bar, paints a gloomy picture of a profession struggling to cope with increasingly complex caseloads, the pressure to protect the interests of vulnerable clients, disruptive patterns of work and repeated demoralising cuts in pay – and argues that family barristers are being driven away from the profession as a result.

Tight budgets

Lucy Theis QC, chair of the Family Law Bar Association, says: "Legal aid pay for family barristers lags far behind private client rates, and below the rates paid by local authorities. The differences are substantial, and they already create significant inequalities in representation in divorce cases between those who can afford to pay for a barrister themselves, and those who can't."

And proposed cuts to the Family Graduated Fee Scheme could make the situation worse. Ruth Cabeza, a junior barrister at Field Court Chambers, says: "I'm concerned about the impact of Family Graduated Fees on the family Bar. My worry is that counsel will either refuse to do the work at the rates being offered or, worse, feel they have no choice but to do the work, take on too much, and standards will suffer."

The survey found that family barristers earn relatively modest professional incomes given the complexity and seriousness of the cases they deal with – a quarter of them earn less than £44,000 a year, and half less than £66,000 a year.

Almost all family barristers supplemented their legal aid work with privately paid work. But the more legal aid they did, the less they earned overall.

Female barristers – especially black and ethnic minority (BME) women – did the most legal aid work and were the worst paid, with a quarter of female BME barristers earning less than £32,000 a year.

In the context of the tough times the family Bar is going through, might family pupils expect cuts in their awards?

Charles Hale, chairman of the Bar's public affairs committee and a barrister at family set 4 Paper Buildings, says: "We are taking seriously the proposed cuts and the significant effect these may have on our income."

However, he adds that his set has no plans to reduce its current pupillage award of £20,000, plus earnings of at least £6,000 in the second six months.

Andrew Powell, who has just finished pupillage and joined 4 Paper Buildings as a tenant, says: "Funding by the Legal Services Commission (LSC) has a real impact. I'm proud of the work I do as a family pupil, but that work also needs to be funded properly so I can continue to do it! If the LSC is serious about attracting individuals from all sections of society into the profession, then it should look again at how it
encourages this."

More news and features for law students

Click here to join the Legal Week Student Facebook group