The BarristersBBC2, 9pm, 14 NovemberThe Open University, BBC
Three years ago the BBC thought it would be a good idea to make a solicitor’s office the subject of a fly-on-the-wall documentary. No Win, No Fee portrayed the colourful personal injury practice at Manchester firm Amelans. This year it’s the turn of the bar, and the first of a four-part series exploring the daily life and traditions of barristers airs on BBC2 tomorrow night.
The Barristers begins with some obligatory jerky camera shots of the Royal Courts of Justice and frantic press scenes outside it. Narrator Jack Davenport, no doubt picked after starring in the popular fictional BBC series This Life, about five angst-ridden lawyers, sets the scene: ‘The High Court in London is one of the world’s great stages where the best-paid barristers contest cases that are reported around the world. The intoxicating atmosphere of court attracts thousands of aspiring lawyers every year.’
But it’s not all high-octane drama, as the programme reveals. With legal aid cuts and other changes bringing increased competition, the profession is under threat as never before.
The Barristers offers insight into each stage at the bar, from students aspiring to join the profession to the work of silks and judges. Its aim is to demystify this hitherto closed world and, from the bar’s point of view, show the steps it has taken towards greater inclusiveness and dispelling the public perception that it is outdated, old-fashioned and elitist.
The first episode introduces four bar vocational course students – Catherine, Kakoly, Iqbal and Anna (pictured above) – whose progress will be tracked through the series. None of them fit the white, public schoolboy stereotype. Through them the viewer learns about the traditions of mooting, dining and call night at Middle Temple. They also demonstrate the hurdles faced by aspiring barristers – and the fierce competition in which only one in five will attain his or her dream (and a huge graduate debt).
The cameras also follow prosecution junior Richard ‘Dickie’ Bond of Birmingham’s Citadel Chambers through a riot and murder trial. He introduces the viewer to a modern clerks room and the more rarefied atmosphere of the robing room. Future episodes will reveal the work of family and civil barristers as well as more crime work, with unprecedented access to the courts – cameras are on almost until the moment the judge comes in.
Co-produced by the BBC and The Open University, and made by the team behind Anatomy of a Crime, the show took eight years of patient negotiation with the bar.
Undoubtedly, the bar has taken a risk allowing the cameras in, and those who took that risk should be commended. But the verdict on whether it’s a good advert for the profession lies in the hands of the public, and it remains to be seen if the public’s appetite for fictional law shows will be matched by their interest in the reality.
Catherine Baksi is a reporter on the Gazette and a non-practising barrister.
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