The Bar Standards Board’s pupillage statistics for 2018/19 (the most recent available) show an increase in black and minority ethnic pupils from 74 to 98 (17.25% of a total of 568 pupils commencing a first six months pupillage). This mirrors a generally upwards trend in the number of black and minority ethnic barristers in self-employed practice and compares favourably with the figures for the self-employed Bar as a whole for the same year: 12.6% of all self-employed barristers (1,698 out of 13,434) are black or minority ethnic.
Figures for 2019/20 have not yet been published, but a recent article in The Law Society Gazette suggests that black and minority ethnic candidates applying through the Bar Council’s Pupillage Gateway in 2020 were disproportionately unlikely to receive an offer (3.3% were successful, in comparison to 8.7% of white candidates). Many sets recruit outside of the Pupillage Gateway, so these figures do not present the full picture. Nor can these bare statistics alone adequately explain the underlying reasons for the disparity, but they are, of course, concerning.
