Junior Barristers - busy but broke?!

jimmylawman

Hey.

I've read lots of threads and heard from lots of people how hard it is at the bar financially in the early years, how it doesn't pay a living wage etc etc

However I have heard almost as many times to be prepared for long hours, hard work, plenty of it, etc etc ..

I am not doubting either claim - however it does confuse me.

If one is busy, very busy even, how can one not be making any money? What exactly is being done in all these long hours if earnings are not being made.

I could understand hanging around the library disconsolately for a few hours a day would not produce much of an income but neither could it exactly be described as long hours or hard work.

Surely if one is putting in the hours and being kept busy constantly, one must be clocking up some earnings, or at the very least moving in the right direction?

If someone could explain this anomaly I would appreciate it. I guess another part of my question is, is there a yardstick by which to judge whether one is going places or not - one could accept a low income for X number of years if the signs were that career was progressing, work was beginning to come in and it looked like the whole thing would be coming together a few years down the road.

Or is it literally a case of finish devilling, go drink coffee and mope around every day for five years, then hey presto all the big cases and cash start rolling in.. (I doubt it).

Would appreciate any guidance on how it usually does pan out and what the middle ground looks like. Thanks.

McCrack

For Barristers it boils down to reputation and getting ones name known (building connections) and that takes time to develop. If a Barrister does sloppy work or is simply inefficient in getting Papers back to the solicitor he/she simply won't be briefed again and guess what he/she won't be recommended to colleagues either.

O and in respect of fees it's often the case that fees won't come in 2-3 years (or longer) after proceedings have been issued. Counsel are the last to be paid in the chain so yes the first few years are going to be tight for Juniors.

FreudianSlippers

It really depends on your master to be honest. I have very busy books all around the country in the next few months, but I'll make no money. This is my time to build up my reputation and hone in on a specific area of law. It's advisable to do 2 years devilling if I'm honest.

I definitely thought, sure I year devilling and I'll be making money the next year. Sure, you can and do make some cash in 2nd year devilling, but not a whole lot.

The important thing is that you put in the time and have a good, busy master. If you do a good job your first 2 years you will have a reputation with solicitors and often more importantly with other barristers as being good and capable.
Once you have that reputation it's 50% hard work and 50% fun really, and there is certainly money to be made out there.


That being said I think a lot of the people really struggling at the bar didn't have good masters - that is the masters themselves weren't busy and didn't really let the devil do things on their own. If that happens, no one (be it your colleagues or Solicitors) sees you working, so how will they give you jobs? They're going to want to give jobs or hand over briefs to people they see up on their feet all the time.

The fact is in the end that money is slim for the first few years, and you're working your ass off (if you're doing it right that is). But it's the poorly paid work you do to build a foundation that will pay off in years 3+

johnnyskeleton

jimmylawman wrote: »

If one is busy, very busy even, how can one not be making any money? What exactly is being done in all these long hours if earnings are not being made.

There are many pitfalls. Depending on the case, it could take months or years to conclude. Once the case is started there is a risk that it will go stale e.g. clinent giving up or not caring enough to prosecute it. Then it could fall on a technical hurdle. Asumming it goes on to trial it could lose, assuming it is successful there is no guarantee that costs will be granted, and after that it all depends on whether the client (or the other side) has the money to pay and actually does pay. There is no guarantee that they will ever pay. If it does pay, there is a good chance that it will only pay after taxation. Then, once they've paid the solicitors there is no guarantee that the solicitor will pay the barrister. So if a case manages to successfully navigate all those pitfalls it might pay money, but perhaps several years down the line from when the work is actually done.

Then there's a load of stuff that is unpaid and will never pay. There might (hypothetically) be solicitors who, realising that there is a large pool of young barristers, ask them if they are prepared to work for free. Or there are a lot of hit and hope cases that don't have much chance of success which are given to younger barristers because a more senior barrister won't deal with it.

Then there's regulatory work (taxes, certificates, CPD), waiting around in court seeing what's going on, if a devil doing work for their master etc. All of which could take a lot of time.

Don't forget that a young barrister will not be able to do work as quickly as a seasoned warhorse and it could take them several times as long (and seem a lot harder) than it is for someone who has done hundreds of the same bit of work.

Then the whole courts system is very slow and a 2 minute court application can take a whole day because of waiting around.

Then while drinking coffee etc isn't exactly work, it nevertheless takes time, as does answering quick questions from solicitors on the phone.

So a young barrister could be doing maybe 30 hours of, if you don't want to call it work, then stuff that occupies their time in a professional capacity.

Then they have a bit of paid work, such as a part time job pulling pints or doing contract work for their last employer. There's lecturing and articles to be written, both of which require preparation time and general researching.

There's also the law reports, which is the chewy staple of manys a young barrister. In fact, if you look through the law reports of the 80s and 90s you will see the names of many judges and senior counsel that started off their illustrious carreers checking spelling and writing those crazy headnotes.

It's just the same in a lot of jobs really - a lot of little distractions and tasks add up.

jimmylawman wrote: »

I could understand hanging around the library disconsolately for a few hours a day would not produce much of an income but neither could it exactly be described as long hours or hard work.

Most of the legal profession is about waiting. Waiting for cases to be called, waiting for clients to show up, waiting for the other side to accept a very generous offer, waiting in line in the central office to issue proceedings, waiting for broken photocopiers to get fixed, waiting for cases to come on for hearing, waiting to get judgement, waiting to get paid, waiting, waiting, waiting.

But I'm sure waiting around doing noting but looking like you're doing something is much harder work than actually doing something.

jimmylawman wrote: »

Surely if one is putting in the hours and being kept busy constantly, one must be clocking up some earnings, or at the very least moving in the right direction?

Yep.

jimmylawman wrote: »

If someone could explain this anomaly I would appreciate it.

Not an anomaly, most businesses require a lot of hard work for little return at the start. I'm sure there's some term for it, like front loaded investment or the like.

jimmylawman wrote: »

I guess another part of my question is, is there a yardstick by which to judge whether one is going places or not - one could accept a low income for X number of years if the signs were that career was progressing, work was beginning to come in and it looked like the whole thing would be coming together a few years down the road.

Nope.

jimmylawman wrote: »

Or is it literally a case of finish devilling, go drink coffee and mope around every day for five years, then hey presto all the big cases and cash start rolling in.. (I doubt it).

I'm not sure where this idea comes from, but if you think about it logically it doesn't make sense. Where would the cash come from but from cases that were commenced in the first 5 years? If a barrister in year 4 is doing nothing and in year 5 gets loads of briefs, assuming no general increase in the level of litigation then where did those briefs come from? Such a system would only work if there were similar numbers going from the top end of junior counseldom as there were people coming in to year 5. But there are maybe 30 busy juniors leaving practice each year and about 150 new entrants each year.

They say that by year 5 there is a big drop off of numbers, but if you look at the law library website you can see the numbers of people (roughly) per year and there isn't that big a drop off, certainly not 80% dropping off after 5 years.

So the logical conclusion is that the opposite must be true - that far from some magical delivery of briefs after 5 years of doing nothing, those 5 years are spent building up the practice (whether by learning, getting known or doing things to get by) and whether you call that building up the practice work or not is up to you, but those that have been through it say it certainly ain't easy (well, most do anyway).

jimmylawman wrote: »

Would appreciate any guidance on how it usually does pan out and what the middle ground looks like. Thanks.

There is no usual to it, but middle ground is probably being reasonably busy and earning enough, if not to survive on, at least to keep doing it in the medium term and chase that magical bunch of briefs waiting around the corner.

Delancey

Is it true that Barristers are not permitted to sue for unpaid fees ?

nuac

Good post, Johnny Skeleton. Good description of the general scene. We have all been there, and still are.

A barrister has one advantage that while many cases don't pay, at least they do not later cóst him/her money.

On the solicitors' side the air is thick with the whirring of chickens coming home to roost - e.g. in the boom times banks were relaxed about undertakings - not so now. Many reviews of files going on. If there is a problem it is usually now the solicitor's problem/

jimmylawman

Thanks all, that does make sense.

From various conversations a picture had been painted of juniors hanging around the law library, nothing to do all day except wait for the phone to ring, or go gossip with their colleagues, and so on ad infinitum until one day their prince arrives in the form of a 'break' and then all comes good at last.

I think in the situations described it would be a lot clearer whether one was actually picking up any work (paid or otherwise) and could therefore extrapolate some indication as to one's future prospects.

If one is getting work, one can at least take heart that fees are being accumulated for later payment (long running cases) and / or reputation being built up for future briefs.

In short, if one is actually hanging around drinking coffee every day a few years in, it might be time to dust off the CV and look at something else.
However if one is busy and picking up pieces all over the camp, one might not be highly paid just yet, but one is on the right track at least.

johnnyskeleton

delancey42 wrote: »

Is it true that Barristers are not permitted to sue for unpaid fees ?

It's not that they are not permitted, it's that they don't have a legal entitlement to their fees (other than legal aid). The phrase "barrister fees" is a bit misleading, they are an honorarium, like a tip.

nuac wrote: »

A barrister has one advantage that while many cases don't pay, at least they do not later cóst him/her money.

And not having to deal with client's making constant and unreasonable demands of your time, which is a lot of work indeed. Particularly clients that expect to get legal advice/representation for free.

jimmylawman wrote:

In short, if one is actually hanging around drinking coffee every day a few years in, it might be time to dust off the CV and look at something else.

If you're not doing any actual barristerin' work, then yes, probably. Although at the moment the options outside of barristerrin' are somewhat limited.

jimmylawman wrote:

However if one is busy and picking up pieces all over the camp, one might not be highly paid just yet, but one is on the right track at least.

Again not quite. There are different kinds of work and doing a once off freebee or no hoper for a new solicitor is a lot different to only ever doing freebees or no hopers for the same solicitors, especially if those solicitors do have other, better work that they give to other barristers.

It's a kinda figure it out as you go along type of thing.