When I am asked if I always wanted to be a Barrister, people are always taken aback when I tell them with no prevarication, no!
I commonly hear Barristers recount how they chose this career from a young age, confident of the direction in which they were headed. That is not my experience. Why would it be? I didn’t even know what a Barrister was, growing up. The mandatory secondary school career discussion served to manage my expectations, instead of opening my mind. Law, or even the possibility of going to university, was never mentioned.
I was raised in a single parent household, alongside three siblings. My mother, a carer, instilled in me the importance of working hard. Despite being the youngest of my siblings, I was the first to obtain a degree. There was no one to pave the way for me, so to speak, or even to advise me on career options. I left secondary school, a school that has now been demolished after falling into special measures, with solid grades.
At sixth form, when walking away from the university fair with bags full of university prospectuses, I hastily skipped over the law pages. Law was never a consideration at that point. It was only when I sat in the public gallery in the Crown Court as part of my Forensic Science degree that my mind was opened to law, and to what a barrister does.
I went on to study law, during which time, my very surprising enjoyment of mooting and debating planted the seed that the Bar was the destination. That is not to say I didn’t have misgivings that the Bar may not be for someone like me. I didn’t know any Barristers that looked like me at that time. It seemed like quite a reach.
I successfully applied for an access scheme called the Legal Launch Pad by the Black Lawyers Directory. The first question on the application form was, do you want to be A) a Barrister, B) a Solicitor, or C) I have not made my mind up yet. I ticked box C, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I just did not have the audacity to tick the box to say I wanted to be a barrister, but the unspoken aspiration niggled away at me. That didn’t stop me from working towards my goal, albeit in my own quiet and understated way. Applications for mini-pupillages, scholarships and pupillages followed, as did the rejections.
My rejection from the Bar Professional Training Course scholarship application caused me to have serious doubts about my chosen career. So much so, I decided to go and get some practical experience under my belt and joined the Civil Service, working for a number of Government departments. One year into my short civil service career, I re-applied for a scholarship for the then BPTC and was successful. That was the turning point. Upon completion of the BPTC, a pupillage offer at a criminal set in London soon followed. My next move brought me back home to Birmingham and to the employment bar at St Philips Chambers.
My journey has been beset with many setbacks. But, if I am being honest, the biggest obstacle, was me getting out of my own way, and overcoming my misgivings that the Bar was not a place for someone that looked like me. I cannot understate the latent perception when you are in spaces where you cannot see anyone that represents you. It took me a while to see how much grit, determination and resilience I had demonstrated already in trying to get to the Bar, and how that was exactly the reason I deserved to be here.
There are so many more groups, access schemes and communities available today for aspiring black Barristers that I wish had existed when I embarked on what felt like quite a lonely journey to the bar.
I would encourage all aspiring black Barristers to take advantage of those groups, but more importantly, I would encourage you to hone in on everything that makes you who you are. Do not allow the fact that you may be unrepresented in certain spaces to cause you to doubt your right to enter those spaces. Claim your own story, know your story and tell it with pride!
