News
Bar Council chairman warns of BPTC graduate surplus
- 10th November 2010
The chair of the Bar Council, Nicholas Green QC, says he has “qualms” about the current system of education that encourages Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) providers to educate an increasing number of law students.
And he expressed growing concerns for the job prospects of aspiring barristers who had completed their training.
Green was addressing the 25th annual Bar Council conference on 6 November. He said that over 4,000 applicants are now routinely competing for about 460 pupillage places but “to my mind the statistics reveal both a moral and an economic problem which we have neither grappled with, nor properly understood”.
He added: “It is true that some students take the exams knowing that the chance of finding a place may be remote and/or that the qualification will be usable elsewhere, but it is clear to me from my many discussions with students, that many are seduced into a long, tortuous and expensive qualification processes where there is no realistic prospect of them ever being absorbed into the profession.” He says he does not accept the argument that students know the risks and voluntarily assume them.
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