City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Goulandris, A. (2016). Continuity and change: the professional lives and culture of self-employed barristers in England and Wales. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, City, University of London) This is the accepted version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/17678/ Link to published version: Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. 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City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] Continuity and Change: the professional lives and culture of self-employed barristers in England and Wales Atalanta Goulandris City, University of London Department of Sociology A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2016 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents 2–5 Acknowledgements 6 Declaration and Note 7 Abstract 8 Key to Abbreviations 9 Introduction 10 PART I Chapter 1 – Research Context – Reforming the Bar 15-34 Origins and development of the profession 1.1 Emergence of the Bar 15 1.2 The Inns of Court: Influence, education and training 17 1.3 Status and Distinction 19 1.4 Lawyer Monopolies and jurisdictional disputes 20 1.5 Representation and Regulation 22 1.6 Legal Aid and the growth of the profession 23 Reforming the Bar 1.7 Early critiques 23 1.8 Loss of monopolies and internal reforms 25 1.9 The Green Papers 1989 and the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 26 1.10 Solicitor Advocates 28 1.11 Legal Aid 28 1.11.1 Civil Legal Aid 29 1.11.2 Further Cuts: Transforming Legal Aid 30 1.12 Liberalisation of the legal services market, independent regulation and The Legal Services Act 2007 31 Chapter 2 – Researching the Bar: themes and perspectives 35-47 2.1 Theorising the Bar: Richard Abel 36 2.2 Empirical research on the Bar 39 2.2.1 Early critical studies 39 2.2.2 A different ‘in the field’ approach 40 2.2.3 Morison and Leith (1992) – on the cusp of change 42 2.2.4 Specific studies 43 2 2.2.5 Legacy of previous empirical research 46 2.2.6 Internal Perspectives 46 2.3 Theoretical perspectives from the sociology of the professions 48 2.3.1 Overview 48 2.3.2 Professional development – jurisdictional disputes triggering change 51 2.3.3 Professionalism reshaped 52 Chapter 3 – Methodology 58-78 3.1 Overview 59 3.2 Research Design 61 3.3 My Sample 64 3.4 Observation 66 3.5 Accessing elites 69 3.6 Ethical Issues 73 3.6.1 Clerks and Chambers Staff 73 3.6.2 A period of ‘crisis’ in the profession 74 3.7 Data Analysis 75 PART II – Findings, Discussion and Conclusions 79 Chapter 4 – Chambers 80-102 4.1 Old chambers model 81 4.2 The growth of chambers and rise of specialist teams 84 4.3 Location, front stage, backstage and virtual space 87 4.4 The new commercialism – business and management 90 4.5 The new clerk 93 4.6 Chambers’ branding 97 4.7 ABS and going ‘global’ 98 4.6 Discussion 100 Chapter 5 – Getting in, fitting in and playing by the new rules 103-135 5.1 Pupillage: how it evolved and what it entails 105 5.2 Regulation of the pupillage selection process 106 5.3 Recent reviews of pupillage and entry to the Bar 107 5.4 Costs and ‘massification’ of legal education 108 5.5 The ‘special’ CV 111 5.5.1 Mini pupillages 113 3 5.5.2 Further educational qualifications 115 5.5.3 Other work experience 116 5.5.4 The implications of these new trends 117 5.6 Pupillage selection processes 118 5.6.1 The sifting stage 119 5.6.2 The interview stage 123 5.7 Pupillage 125 5.7.1 Structure and supervision 125 5.7.2 Training courses during pupillage 130 5.7.3 The pupillage experience 132 Chapter 6 – Getting work 136-164 6.1 The new entrepreneurial barrister 137 6.2 Online branding, high visibility and social media 140 6.3 Marketing in groups/teams 143 6.4 Individual initiatives: specialism, new practice areas and diversification 145 6.5 Relationship Building 148 6.6 Attitudes to marketing 150 6.7 Direct Access 153 6.7.1 Advantages 154 6.7.2 Unsuitability 155 6.7.3 Client contact 158 6.7.4 Solicitors and Direct Access 161 6.7.5 Public awareness of direct access 162 6.8 Discussion 163 Chapter 7 – Bar Culture 165-190 7.1 Independence, autonomy and public service 167 7.2 Accountability, regulation and managerial reforms 174 7.3 CFAs and their impact on independence 179 7.4 Excellence, commitment and trust 182 7.5 Discussion 188 Chapter 8 – Community, identity and professional socialisation 191-213 8.1 Inns of Court 191 8.2 Specialist Bar Associations 195 4 8.3 Chambers 197 8.4 A United Bar? 200 8.4.1 The ‘public/private’ divide 201 8.4.2 Changing chambers 204 8.5 Inclusion/exclusion and diversity 206 8.6 Giving back to the community: charity and pro bono 210 8.7 Discussion 211 Chapter 9 – Conclusions – a new Bar? 214-225 APPENDICES 226-236 Appendix 1 List of Participants 226 Appendix 2 Seminars/conferences attended 228 Appendix 3 Southampton University Ethics approval 229 Appendix 4 Samples of interview questions 230 Appendix 5 Participant Information Sheet 233 Appendix 6 Consent Form 235 Appendix 7 City University, London consent form October 2013 236 Bibliography 237-253 5 Acknowledgements My first thanks must go to all the barristers, chambers staff and other participants, without whom the study would not have been possible. They were generous with their time and knowledge and many shared some of the difficulties they are facing in their professional lives during a time of great change at the Bar. Particular thanks to the barrister (and his family) who housed me for a week and whom I shadowed throughout his working days in that period. Enormous thanks to barristers Sinclair Cramsie and Francis Fitzgibbon QC for reading an earlier draft - feedback from practitioners was hugely valuable and very much appreciated. I could have not have wished for a wiser, more attentive, hard-working and inspiring supervisor than Professor Eugene McLaughlin. I thank him deeply for his advice, guidance, continuous reading and feedback. Professor Andy Boon was a very valuable second supervisor and I am grateful to him for directing me to some of the relevant literature, his feedback on many of the drafts and for permitting me to air and share some of my preliminary findings at two consecutive annual Socio Legal Studies Association conferences. My fellow PhD students in the department have made the doctoral experience much more fun than it might have been and I thank the Soc Anon crowd in particular for their support and friendship. Thanks also to Lisa Migo and Blessing Theophilus Israel, administrators of the Sociology doctoral programme at City. Last, but not certainly not least, I thank my family: Stephane, for his support, despite being ignored quite a lot of the time, for proofreading and for always showing interest; our children, who grew up during the years it took to complete this study and maintained a sustained and impressive indifference to it throughout, obliging me to remain firmly rooted in ‘real’ life. 6 Declaration I grant powers of discretion to the University Librarian to allow the thesis to be copied in whole or in part without further reference to me. This permission covers only single copies made for study purposes, subject to normal conditions of acknowledgement. Note An earlier version of Chapters 5 and 7 appeared in: Goulandris, A. (2015) ‘Reshaping professionalism: branding, marketing and the new entrepreneurial barrister’, International Journal of the Legal Profession, 22(3): 272-298 7 ABSTRACT This thesis explores how self-employed barristers responded to the reforms that have reshaped the profession in the last 25 years, to assess if and how their professional lives and perceptions of Bar identity and culture have changed as a result. The loss of its advocacy monopoly, cuts to legal aid, the liberalisation of the rules governing the Bar’s working structures and external regulation go to the core of the reforms. It is a qualitative study, based on semi-structured interviews with barristers and chambers staff, together with observation in chambers, at court and at informal and formal Bar events over a period of 18 months, triangulated by in-depth reading of the trade press, the national media, social media and official pronouncements from the profession’s representative and regulatory bodies for the same period. The study takes into account the literature on the sociology of the professions and tests its applicability to the Bar’s distinct and idiosyncratic structures and ways of working. It considers Abbott’s (1988) professional development thesis, which focuses on jurisdictional battles between professions for control over tasks and the attendant changes that emerge as a result of such conflicts.