Compare the role of barristers and solicitors.

Assess the extent to which the two branches of the legal

profession now provide the same services to the public.

In England and Wales there are two types of lawyers, barristers and solicitors which are jointly

referred to as the legal profession. Barristers are referred as “the Bar” and they are controlled by

their own professional body, the General Council of the Bar. Solicitors are advocates which are

controlled by their own professional body, the Law Society. This essay will discuss the role of

barristers and solicitors and assess the extent to which the two branches of the legal profession

now provide the same services to the public. It can be seen that both the roles have now intertwined

and now provide the same services to some extent.

The process of being a barrister goes as that all barristers must be a member of one of the four Inns

of Court such as Lincoln’s Inn, Gray’s Inn etc, these are situated near the Royal Courts of Justice in

London. In these Inns, an individual will have to take part in 12 dinners to meet senior barristers and

judges. During this time, a one-year course will be taken by the students which is known as the Bar

Professional Training Course (BPTC), once this has passed, the person will be called to the bar. After

this course is completed, the individual must apply and complete their pupilage in 12 months with 1

senior barrister or 6 months with 2 barristers. After the rst 6 months of pupilage, barristers are

eligible to appear in court and may conduct their own cases. During pupillage, the trainee barristers

are paid a small salary by the chambers they are attached to. Furthermore, if an individual nishes

their undergraduate degree in a subject other than law then they will have to take a one-year course

before the BPTC which is known as a Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL). Barristers practicing at the

Bar are self employed, they work from a set of chambers where they can administer expenses with

other barristers, or they may be employed by bodies such as the CPS or Civil Service. The majority
of barristers mainly focus on advocacy which is the act of going and arguing a case in court.

Barristers have full rights to audience which means that they are allowed to present their case in any

court within England and Wales. However, some may specialise in areas such as tax and company

law, these rarely appear in courts. Originally, clients needed to hire a solicitor who would brief a

barrister for the case, this created unnecessary expense as the clients had to hire 2 lawyers instead

of 1. As a result of the criticism a system started called “the Bar” under Bar direct. This allowed

individual and rm to instruct barrister for civil cases and does not require a solicitor for brie ng.

Due to this, there was less duplication of work. However, this would cause a decrease in the

specialist skills of advocacy.

To qualify as a solicitor, an individual will either have to get a law degree, or nish a course known as

the Legal Practice Course (LPC) which includes training in skills such as client interviewing,

negotiation, advocacy, drafting documents, and legal research or have a 2 year training period to be

quali ed as a solicitor. The individual will also have the option to nish their degree in any other non-

law subject, then nish their GDL and then move on to the LPC followed by the two-year training

program to be quali ed as a solicitor. During this two-year training course, the trainee will be paid,

though not at the same rate as a fully quali ed solicitor, and will do their work, supervised by a

solicitor. After nishing their training, solicitors can work in private practice from a solicitors rm.

Newly quali ed solicitors may also move on to work for the CPS. The work a solicitor does is largely

dependent on the type of rm they are working in. Small rms often focus mainly on consumer

problems, housing, and family disputes. Solicitors spend most of their time interviewing clients and

negotiating on their behalf. A large amount of time is also spent on legal paperwork, writing letters,

drafting contracts, drawing up wills, or dealing with conveyancing. Solicitors had very limited rights

to an audience, advocating solely in the Magistrates Court and sometimes in the County Court.
Solicitors had very limited rights to present their cases in court. This can be seen in Abse v Smith

where the solicitor working on the case was refused permission by the judge to read out the terms

of the settlement they decided on in open court. These restrictions were changed in the Court and

Legal Service Act 1990 and the Access to Justice Act 1999. The Court and Legal Service Act 1990

allowed solicitors to apply for a certi cate of advocacy which enables them to appear in a court

higher in the hierarchy. The Access to Justice Act 1999 further made provisions for all solicitors to

be granted automatic rights of audience. This created solicitors to have the same rights as a

barrister, making it doubtful that both the branches in legal profession now continue to provide the

same services and the positions have intertwined. Solicitors may now apply for rights for the

audience in all courts.

The roles of barristers and solicitors were to a large degree of di erence. Barristers specialised in

presenting cases in courts and could appear in any court. Solicitors generally did o ce based work

and only had limited rights to present cases in court. As discussed, the rules of advocacy were

changed by the Courts and Legal Services Act 1999 to provide higher rights for solicitors. This was

created to provide equal rights and easier court processes for the lay people, however this resulted

in the overlap between the work done by barristers and solicitors. It can be proven how both these

roles have become similar over the time and overlap upon each other that may cause disturbance in

law.

To conclude, barristers are specialised in presenting cases in courts and could appear in any court.

However, solicitors were meant to based upon o ce based work and only had limited rights of

advocacy in courts. Barristers and solicitors used to be quite di erent however the roles have

become pretty much intertwined due to the changes made by the Court and Legal Service Act 1990
and the Access to Justice Act 1999, where both solicitors and barristers can now take cases from

start to nish as barristers have the right to litigation while solicitors have advocacy rights and can

represent clients in all courts. This has resulted an overlap between the two rules and is causing

trouble to their actual roles that they were trained for. The two professions can be seen to have more

similarities now than they did before.