'Many people don't get pupillage the first time they apply'

Encouraging social mobility is top of the Bar's agenda. Is this goal realistic?

It will be difficult to achieve in the current climate. The problem at the publicly-funded Bar is that with work drying up and so little being paid at the junior end, the only people that will be able to maintain practice are those with independent means. In that sense, social mobility will take a huge step backwards and that should concern us all.

Aspiring barristers could be scared off by a reported shortage of pupillage places. What would you say to them?

What I would say in the first place is: are you sure this is the job for you? Don't put yourself through the application process and then pupillage if you're not absolutely committed to a career at the Bar.

How do you know if this job is for you? Get as much information about it as possible - and experience, too. Applying for mini-pupillages and speaking to junior tenants is the best way to do this. Be aware that the job is extremely challenging: the hours are long, the work difficult, and the pay in many areas poor. If money is your motivating factor - and why shouldn't it be - steer clear of the publicly funded Bar.

If you're sure that the Bar is for you, then apply for pupillage. Don't be put off by the shortage of places. Do everything you can to maximise your potential and sell yourself to chambers, but be realistic about your prospects: most people don't get pupillage the first time they apply.

How is public access work changing the profession?

It is making barristers more commercially aware. How can we develop our 'product'? How can we best sell it? This is, for some, an entirely new way of thinking.

Public access work also allows barristers to broaden our skill set. Most obviously it brings us into contact more with our lay clients, and so we gain experience.

It also has the potential to change the relationship between the Bar and solicitors. The extent of this change will depend on the balance of work any particular barrister or chambers does, but it certainly changes the dynamic.

How do you recommend barristers should handle stress at the Bar?

Make the most of those rare quiet days. If you have time to take a long lunch with a friend, for example, do it. There will be plenty of days where you won't even have time for lunch. Likewise if you don't have too much work over the weekend, make other plans. Little things like that help you achieve some semblance of a work/life balance, which can be difficult in this job.

Why specialise in crime?

I enjoy the wide variety of work available, and the fact that I spend most of my time in court, on my feet. I also get tremendous satisfaction from the knowledge that I can make a huge difference to someone's life by working towards and hopefully achieving the right result for them.

For me there was never an alternative. It is the most exciting area of law, with every case interesting in its own way and revealing so much about human nature and all our quirks and foibles.

What will the Bar look like in five years' time?

My fear is that the publicly funded Bar will revert to that awful stereotype of white, male and comfortably-off - because who else can afford to stay? Of course we want that sort of person at the Bar but they should not be representative of the profession. After all, they're not representative of the society the Bar represents.

However, for those of us willing and able to hang on I think that we will be able to offer a wider skill set than has perhaps been the case in the past (a result of us having to diversify to survive), and we will hopefully be better practitioners for it.