Pupillage : the making of the barristers' profession

• Main Author: Rogers, Justine
• Published: University of Oxford 2011
• Subjects: 340.0715
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.550576

This thesis is an investigation of the processes of pupillage, or barristers' apprenticeship in chambers, from an insider's perspective. It is framed in the context of extensive and ongoing changes to the Bar, as one of Britain's oldest and most sought-after professions, and its most public of elites. An insider examination of a group's forms of selection and socialization offers a vitally useful way of understanding the nature of its knowledge, identity and status, how these are being shaped and reproduced, and what they mean to its members. This thesis provides a finely detailed ethnographic account of these qualities and dynamics on the basis of sustained research in chambers. It is unlike any other study of the Bar to date. The first part of the study focuses on the experiences and perceptions of pupils, from getting a pupillage to the final, tenancy stage. The second part centres on the strategies and routine practices of chambers, and the opinions and underlying attitudes of its members. These sections both contain a comparative analysis since the study included sets of chambers from three different (and major) practice areas. This thesis explores the applicability of classic descriptions of initiations, professional socialization and identity, and professional behaviour. It sheds light on the wider changes to the Bar, principally the effects of 'managerialism', in relation to certain debates about their nature and meaning. Finally, this study reveals aspects of the workings of internal differentiation and hierarchy at the Bar, with respect to selection, identity- formation, and markers of elite status.