Defying odds - joining legal profession despite barriers

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has said that she expects to have a plan on how to implement recommendations to remove barriers to the legal profession "within weeks".

The Legal Services Regulatory Authority has published research outlining the difficulties faced by those who want to pursue careers as solicitors or barristers.

It issued 32 recommendations outlining measures that could be taken to alleviate these difficulties.

Legal Affairs Correspondent Orla O'Donnell speaks to two women who have navigated difficult journeys on their path to becoming lawyers.

'Breaking the cycle'

Shannon Coy is one of those who has defied all the odds to become a fully qualified barrister. But it has been a difficult journey and it is not getting any easier.

The 28-year-old grew up in a large family in an area of Co Waterford that she describes as disadvantaged.

She was one of seven children. None of her siblings went on to higher education. In her school, most people left after the Junior Certificate.

Shannon says that she was going down a bad road herself. Up to fifth year in school, she was a "nightmare".

But she says her principal saw something in her that she didn’t see in herself. She confided in the principal that she wanted to be a barrister because she wanted to speak up for people who could not speak up for themselves.

Shannon had seen young people committing crimes, ending up in and out of prison. She felt she had seen both sides of the law and could advocate for these young people.

The biggest barrier to achieving her dream was a financial one. And it remains so today.

Shannon says she took up higher level subjects in her Leaving Certificate and passed with flying colours, getting a place in what was then Carlow Institute of Technology.

She qualified for a grant to pay her fees and for a full maintenance grant. But it was still a struggle to make ends meet and to keep up with her studies with a chaotic family life in the background.

Despite some very low moments, she kept going, fuelled by the desire to build a better life for herself. She passed her degree and also qualified for funding for a masters in University of Limerick.

After that, the financial barriers became even higher. The fees for Shannon to continue her training in the King’s Inns in Dublin amounted to €12,000 and she was not successful in getting a scholarship.

She received funding for half of the amount. But she could not see how she would get the other half. Her partner at the time - who is now her husband - stepped in. He and her family again saw something in her, she says, and paid the rest of the fees.

Shannon often felt out of place as a student barrister. She said that she could not afford to socialise and sometimes felt like an outcast.

She did not have any financial support, no background in law and no connections in the profession.

The next step for a budding barrister is a "pupillage" - what is called devilling - with an experienced barrister, called a master. This must be done for at least a year, in Dublin.

"I'm all about breaking the cycle. I’ve been trying to do it my whole life and I’m still here trying to do it. But when will it be broken?"

Student barristers must also pay an annual subscription to The Bar Council of Ireland. In her first year of devilling, Shannon’s master paid this as is normal.

By second year, the annual fee had risen to almost €2,500 and Shannon pays tribute to her master, Femi Daniyan BL, who understood the difficulties she faced and paid the second year subscription.

Shannon says she wanted to practise in criminal law, as speaking out for underprivileged young people was what had sparked her desire to be a barrister in the first place.

However, she said that she had to leave criminal law altogether due to the money she was paid. She points to the fact that she would get just €25 euro for representing someone in the district court, and also mentions the difficulties barristers can face in being paid in a timely way by solicitors’ firms.

She began working in family law instead and says she realises that is where she was meant to be.

Last year, Shannon became pregnant with her son, AJ, who is now eight months old. This has left her at a crossroads.

As she is returning from maternity leave, she is struggling to afford the Bar of Ireland’s subscription this year.

She is making ends meet by working for the International Protection Office but this is conditional on her remaining a practising barrister. She is also on the council’s equality and diversity committee.

But Shannon says it is a financial struggle to be the person she wants to be.

"I studied for six years," she says, "for what?" She says she wants to pay back her husband, who is a prison officer, and his family for their support, by becoming a successful barrister and making a living from it. But at the moment, she says, she feels she has to "pull the plug on it, for a while".

Shannon says there should be more supports available to people like her from disadvantaged backgrounds. She says it has taken her a while to realise she is as good as anyone else who studied with her.

But she feels the supports are not there. She speaks about a reluctance to open up about her situation to people in the Bar of Ireland, knowing she would have to be in court with them the next day.

"I’m all about breaking the cycle. I’ve been trying to do it my whole life and I’m still here trying to do it. But when will it be broken?"

The Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) recognises that financial costs are the most significant barriers to becoming a barrister or a solicitor.

In its recommendations to the Government, it recognises that the unpaid nature of a barrister’s pupillage is "challenging".

Among its proposals are that this mandatory requirement should be reviewed. It also says that, along with the Bar Council of Ireland, it should explore innovative solutions for financial supports, including a possible minimum payment for barristers when they are devilling.

The LSRA also recommends exploring the possibility of solicitors going into apprenticeships straight after school where they would receive the minimum wage and "earn as they learn".

The research shows the legal profession is almost exclusively white and Irish and that 72% of barristers and 70% of solicitors are in the "ABC1" social class. Almost one third of barristers and 27% of solicitors attended fee-paying secondary schools.

Data from the Law Society - the body responsible for training solicitors - shows that almost half of trainees in the past decade had degrees from Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, or University College Cork.

The huge financial barriers to joining the profession are also accompanied by an information deficit, the LSRA found, including information about training and career pathways.

Balancing work and study

Tarisai May Chidawanyikam, a 30-year-old employment solicitor, cites this lack of information as being the biggest barrier she faced when starting out.

Tarisai came to Ireland from Zimbabwe in 2008 and completed her secondary education in Ireland before getting a place to study law in UCD.

She says that she had always wanted to be a lawyer, but coming from a disadvantaged background, she was immediately on the back foot.

When you're starting, and have no contacts in the profession, "you don’t know what you don’t know" about opportunities for training or about financial supports, she says. She also did not know how long the process would be when she started out.

Tarisai says she was lucky and feels extremely grateful that she got a paid internship with big legal practice, where she has been supported.

But she says she was always conscious that other students could focus completely on their exams - the notoriously difficult FE1s which student solicitors must complete - whereas she always had to balance work and study.

Tarisai points to the difficulties faced by immigrants who may have completed law qualifications in their home countries but have to start from scratch when they come to Ireland. She says that "not everyone can afford to do that".

With regard to diversity in the profession, she says, this has certainly improved. But she says that she wants everyone to have enough information to pursue their careers and the financial supports to be able to do so.

The LSRA says it is committed to playing "the fullest role possible" in addressing entry barriers to careers in the legal professions. It hopes its research will highlight opportunities to make things better.

It also acknowledges that the professional bodies - the Law Society of Ireland, the Bar Council of Ireland and the Honorable Society of the King’s Inns - have introduced a range of initiatives and reforms.

The LSRA's research has been welcomed by the Law Society which says it is committed to widening access to the legal profession "through targeted investment and developing existing initiatives".

This includes a range of financial supports, new routes to legal qualifications, and school outreach programmes.

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee also welcomed the findings. She said she would publish an implementation plan for the recommendations "within weeks" and has asked the LSRA to report on the progress made every six months.

The minister said that any person who has the skills and determination to pursue a legal career should be able to do so - "irrespective of their gender, background, ethnicity or means".