Editors' Blog

Neuberger and access: let’s square that circle

Posted 28/11/2007 by Alex Novarese

It’s tortuously difficult to write about the Bar and the simmering issues of access and diversity without breaking into twisted metaphors.

So how are we to characterise the publication this week of Lord Neuberger’s much-anticipated report on widening access to the Bar? Canute trying to hold back the sea? Shifting deckchairs on the Titanic? Forcing that square peg into a round hole, perhaps? On balance, I would go for the 'sticking-plaster on a gaping wound' analogy, as in a sensible course of action entirely inadequate to the severe underlying problem.

That’s not to say the widely-admired Neuberger and his working party haven’t made a good fist of it. The “practical and sensible” series of 57 recommendations have been received as the most thoughtful and serious attempt to tackle these issues yet. And given that there have been six such reviews of varying scale since 1991, that’s up against some serious competition.

Yet it is hard to see how any review can address the intractable access and diversity issues facing the Bar. As a career, it is still highly desirable, whatever fretting senior Bar figures say about “not getting the best minds”. As such, it attracts far more people than it can support. Worse, it is contracting as a profession. You don’t have to be one of the doom-mongers or Legal Services Act radicals to believe that the Bar will function in the future as a smaller profession, more focused on specialisation and with a more porous relationship with its once-separate solicitor counterparts.

Furthermore, if there is a career out there that requires high academics and attracts intense competition but isn’t dominated by the privileged and expensively-educated, I’ve yet to see it.

It is understandable why the BVC providers come in for some stick for selling vocational education that turns out to not provide a vocation, but that’s markets for you. Attempts to link BVC places with pupillages may well seem sensible but would not solve the access issue at the heart of the report - it's just making a market work a bit better.

Likewise, the idea of a BVC that can be converted to a Masters is interesting, as it holds the concept of the training having broader application. Good idea but it still doesn’t help access.

Because you can’t. The problem simply won’t be solved. Widening access in a shrinking profession is well-nigh impossible without something really radical. The plaster won’t stop the bleeding, the boat’s still going down, the square peg won’t go in the hole.

So leave the inner-city kids alone. It’s hard enough for the underprivileged to navigate the widely-unfair British schooling system. The last thing we want to do is start directing them towards one of the most elitist clubs in the world that hasn’t got the space - even if it has the will - to accommodate them.

alex.novarese@legalweek.com