#IAmTheBar My route to the Bar? Well, I come from a non-legal background (no lawyers in my family). I went to a comprehensive school and non-Oxbridge university, and was dependent on a scholarship from my Inn to take the BVC (as was then).
Obviously anonymity makes this a slightly tricky exercise as I can't give as much detail as I'd like, but it's probably right to say that I found the whole idea of the "traditional" Bar really quite alienating, and unlike anything else I'd ever encountered.
No barristers ever visited my schools, so there was no exposure to this world before I attended mini-pupillage. It was a culture shock, to put it mildly (not least as the first junior barrister I shadowed told me he was quitting the Bar).
Fortunately, to cut a long story short, I found a chambers which, although not short of its share of "traditional" characters, had some lovely and normal people, and, for reasons still unknown, they took a chance on me. Despite being late to my pupillage interview.
And I'd echo loudly what Natasha said about the importance of resilience and not giving up during the process. It's tough, particularly if you feel as if you're getting rejection after rejection (I certainly did - most people do). But keep pushing on.
Oh, and to jump back a step - why did I decide to become a barrister? When I was about 12, my mum suggested I should be a barrister. I didn't know what it meant, I looked it up and thought, "Yep, that sounds interesting. How hard can it be?"
(I was an idiot. It's hard.)
(I was an idiot. It's hard.)
From there, I absorbed myself in legal pop culture - witnesses taking the stand, gavels and the like - and quickly realised how fascinating I found the idea of criminal law. And from there, even before I started studying the subject, I think I always knew it was crime or bust.
I dabbled in other areas of the law at the beginning of my practice, but nothing excited me as much as crime. So fairly quickly, in defiance of all advice, my practice narrowed to exclusively criminal work. And then someone close to me suggested I start a Twitter account & blog.
I forget what happened after that.
