FE1 Exam Thread (Read 1st post!) NOTICE: YOU MAY SWAP EXAM GRIDS

Tony_TwoLegs wrote: »

Yeah you'd be wondering lol.
I've been in practice 8/9months now and it ain't for me.
I've actually been in 3 firms over the years, so it's not that one firm either.

The role of a barrister is more me.
The barrister degree makes you quite attractive if you were to convert too (less than 100 qualifying a year) and it's a whole lot easier to convert from barrister to solicitor than vice versa.

I hear your point though. Yep it's not an easy choice but too many people are blinded by the idea of being a solicitor and then realise 'hold on... is this It?'.
I'm just acting before it is too late and can always convert if it didn't work out.

BL degrees are not uncommon. While there are fewer than 100 per year qualifying now, you have to remember that up until the crash, that number was 220-250 per year. Barristers are 10-a-penny so to speak, as against the demand for the qualification. The degree was hugely cheapened by a period of what can only be termed downright greed. Even 80-100 or whatever the number is now is far too many for an already flooded market.

Add to the above the fact that barristers fees have been riven over the past 10 years to a point where most of the work just isn't worth the time. I know people reading this will be thinking "ah, it can't be that bad..." Frankly, it is. The mainstay of the bar for years was personal injuries, by far the most common kind of case for any civil practitioner. Both in terms of volume of cases and fees for them, this has fallen away completely and is now not alone capable of sustaining anyone at the bar (a few of the busier and better-known practitioners aside, who have the caseload to absorb the pitiful fees.)

In terms of solid figures in relation to the above. When I started at the bar 10 years ago, a Circuit Court personal injuries claim that settled after setting down for trial would be probably €1,500-2,000 for the Plaintiff JC. These are typically €600-750 now. If it settles before setting down for trial, you get the fee for drafting the summons (maybe some pity money on top) so, €200-300. There are many reasons why this is the case but market economics accounts for a proportion of it.

There are absolutely no guarantees of success no matter how good you are. On the basis of my observations at the bar, some factors that will influence how successful you are might be (in this order) family connections, other pre-existing connections (former colleagues, political etc.), luck, personality (affability, exuberance, even eccentricity), who you devil with, what school you went to, how good-looking you are, how memorable your name is...[long list of other things.]

Ability is in there somewhere in fairness but other factors will influence whether your ability ever gets discovered, and what any given barrister might consider to be "ability" can often be wildly different from what (a) other barristers (b) judges and (c) solicitors consider to be ability.

You might be one of the people who can carve out a niche or work in very specific areas and become one of a very small number of practitioners in a given area but there are obvious difficulties with this approach. Primarily, a legislative reform of that area could kill your practice stone dead overnight. Secondarily, you are diluting the pool. Tertiarily (bear with me!), it's very difficult to identify niches from the outside (like any niche-targeting exercise really.)

All the other crap that self-employed people have to deal with is relevant here too. Don't forget there are huge administrative overheads to being self-employed.

The market for second-hand barristers (i.e. seeking employment qua Counsel) isn't great either - most places looking to hire in-house Counsel want Counsel with in-house experience and not litigators.

Also, litigation as a means of resolving disputes is becoming less and less "popular" - ADR is being promoted at all levels within the legal profession.

Listen, I could go on and on.

TL;DR I suppose, I would not consider a career at the bar to be a career as such, more an expensive and not very rewarding hobby.

My reply was for everyone's benefit and not tailored to you specifically. Of course, it addressed some of the inaccuracies in your post, which is why I quoted you.

If you perceive that you have advantages, by all means, go for it. I'm not here to rain on anyone's parade.