Bar Standards Board reveals concerns around diversity at barristers’ chambers
Diversity at barristers’ chambers is improving but there are still some concerning areas, a Bar Standards Board (BSB) report has revealed.
The report on 170 high impact chambers, which are those where it would be serious if something went wrong, said that while many showed a “real desire” to encourage greater diversity, the number of high-quality applicants for each pupilage meant little incentive existed to recruit from a wider pool of people.
Some attempts to diversify were clearly ill-guided, the report said as it noted anecdotal comments from a visit to one chamber, where “they had decided to market chambers with universities other than Oxbridge – by extending the spread to the Russell Group universities”.