In January, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) launched its ‘Consultation on proposed amendments to the definition of academic legal training and related exemptions’, suggesting four potential reforms by September 2025.
In a stiff rebuke this week, however, the Bar Council opposed three of these reforms: removing the requirement for a minimum 2:2 degree, giving authorised education and training organisations the power to decide whether applicants are academically competent, and removing the requirement for certain applicants to obtain a Certificate of Academic Standing.
Sam Townend KC, Chair of the Bar Council, said the majority of the BSB’s proposed reforms ‘would lower standards, make the assessment of academic standards equivalent to degrees more difficult, and transfer decisions away from the BSB (the regulator formally tasked with the job) to the training providers, who are not accountable and who have a clear financial interest in maximising the number of students taking up Bar training.
‘There are already thousands taking the roughly 20 Bar training courses, but only a little over 600 pupillage places. The clear intent of the regulator’s intended reform is to increase yet further the numbers taking Bar training courses, inevitably ramping up further the numbers of students who will have paid the high level of fees but be disappointed in not obtaining a pupillage. We think this is the wrong approach.’
The Bar Council said it was neutral about the fourth proposal, amending the definition of academic legal training so as to remove prescriptive detail.
According to the BSB, there were 2,360 enrolments on the 2023 Bar training course. Only 638 pupillages were advertised through the Pupillage Gateway.
