If you’ve ever spent your morning commute dreaming of starting your career afresh, this feature is for you. Every Monday we speak to someone from a different profession to find out what it’s really like. This week we speak to Barrister Benjamin Knight from Central Chambers, Manchester, and Liberal Chambers, London.
Take-home pay can be extremely low…
Initially, a junior criminal barrister can bill £10,000 to £50,000 in gross fees. That can also be confusing. Some fees are never properly collected; some are written off and exclude chamber contributions, travel, insurance, practice costs, and taxes. Once you factor in the hours, the take-home price can be extremely low. At the top level, you sometimes hear headlines about criminal barristers earning millions. In fact, the handful of people who can get seven figures tend to be very senior Caseys, and the eye-watering figure may reflect years of work on the same big case, along with everything else. The income from crime is also unpredictable from year to year, making planning a normal life strangely difficult.
The bell ringing at 10 o’clock at night is a common occurrence. A typical week is 50 to 60 hours, but a trial week can be twice that. Late nights are common, not because barristers like to be busy, but because you can spend the whole day in court and then start your next day’s work at night: preparing for the next day of hearings as well as pursuing other matters. Add late disclosures and last-minute instructions and you’ll learn to take breaks where you can, rather than when they’re “expected”.
Criminal barristers joke that we don’t retire; we die in our wigs… The more realistic version is that people keep moving while they are still fast and want to do so. Some people go to the bench (become judges). I am Generation X. Retirement always feels like a slightly imaginary concept until you end up with a decent pension path. For many people, this is the attraction of becoming a judge.
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You can make friends with your opponents, of course… Sometimes close friends. Professionalism comes first. You’re not there to be friends; you are there to do your job properly. Cordial is the default. Being friendly is normal. Hostility is usually a sign that someone is doing it badly. There is a social scene, but it is not the heady fantasy that some dramas sell. People are busy. Events occur, and WhatsApp groups exist, as one would expect. Is it competitive? There can be a bit of swagger at the very junior end, and students can be ridiculously curious. But most criminal barristers are too busy trying to escape the diary to play status games.
The job can still be lonely, especially when barristers are away from home for long periods, but the bar can also be a wonderful source of support and unity when someone needs help, provided that they actually ask.
There should always be a flicker of adrenaline before addressing a judge or jury… If not, you’re either not paying attention or have become numb. I don’t work from a script but from bullet points and themes. If I write everything down, I edit myself as I speak. Your perspective changes with experience. Good advocacy is listening, especially in cross-examination, where you need to plan in advance and adapt to an answer you did not quite expect.
Judge’s advocacy and jury’s advocacy are different… Juries usually hear fresh cases. The judges have heard versions of the same presentation for years, and sometimes the blinkers are so tight, you have to push them back without any complaints. If I am wrong, I admit it immediately. Maintaining credibility is crucial, as it can be earned and lost with ease.
Pupil is extremely competitive and expensive to reach.
The ultimate goal is not merely to have letters after your name; rather, it is to receive instruction that enables you to produce high-quality work suited to your skills, ultimately reaching a point where you can walk onto the court and feel, “I should be here.” Additionally, efforts are being made to eliminate imposter syndrome, which is more common at bars than people realise.
One case always reminds me that this job is not just about winning arguments… Early in my career, I was doing prison law work. A client asked me to meet his cellmate, who was illiterate and unable to write. The cellmate was convicted of a serious sexual offence much earlier, said to have occurred when he was a child. Upon meeting him, I observed that he was gravely ill and evidently experiencing abuse in prison. He was being used “as a reward” for other prisoners, among other things. Despite my efforts to investigate an appeal, the case’s age resulted in a significant amount of lost paperwork. All I could do was focus on getting him out of jail and into safe health care. We managed it. Over time, he stabilised physically, then mentally, and eventually built something resembling life. One Christmas Eve I went to visit him in the medical unit and he gave me a Christmas card. A nurse told me it was the first card she had ever written to anyone. It’s still in my desk drawer.
I was part of the longest jury trial in English history… It was a test of endurance for everyone, including the jury. This proved to me that juries can handle complex, document-heavy cases well if you present them properly. This trial is as effective a rebuttal as you could want to the myth that juries can’t handle complexity.
Photo: iStock
I was attacked at work… by defendants, and once by a party in family proceedings when I was in mixed practice. Emotions run high and people can lash out. Such an incident has happened to me too, when I felt unsafe going home and complained about it. It involves a car and an M62… In certain types of tasks, you become more cautious when leaving court buildings. Online hostility also exists. Comment sections can be terrifying. I even stopped reading that stuff years ago. People sometimes forget that representing someone does not mean endorsing what they are accused of. It is never appropriate to attack lawyers for doing their job.
Historically, the legal profession was dominated by affluent, cisgender, heterosexual, white men, which created visibility issues; if individuals cannot see people who resemble them in this field, they may easily assume that those individuals are not like them. This is true for care leavers and the neurodiverse, and it’s also true for openly gay and trans people. After we made progress, the lack of adequate legal assistance and unfavourable working conditions made access challenging once more. The debt is huge, the early years can be financially difficult and people wisely decide not to stake their lives on it. This trend hurts everyone, as it reduces not only the number of advocates but also the number of future judges. If we want the best people and a judiciary with wide experience, the system must be viable for those who do not have a financial safety net.
The criminal justice system is more fair than people think… And I think juries take their oaths seriously. I have witnessed decisions that required meticulous, forensic reasoning. But prejudice exists. Some of the bias is unconscious. You can see the difference in the patterns and results. The system is often fair, but it’s not perfect, and we shouldn’t pretend it is. I don’t accept that the answer to injustice is to weaken the jury, one of our best safeguards against it. In most cases the jury helps the system, so removing them worsens the backlog. If you want fewer failed trials, do the boring things right: prompt and appropriate disclosures, case management that is substantive rather than performative, and resources and training for institutions that continue to fail at a fundamental level.
I would start with this: the lack of adequate administrative units in police forces and the shrinking of the CPS, along with a culture of backlash in both, are significant issues.
Stop the “liberated” nonsense… One thing I would change is honest reporting. If you report a sentence, publish comments and references related to it.
If I am competent, available, and properly guided, I should not select clients based on popularity or my personal feelings. The rules exist so representation doesn’t become a luxury only for likeable people.
If a client admits to committing the act, I cannot mislead the court; instead, I may assess whether the prosecution can substantiate its allegations or generally recommend a guilty plea, ensuring that the conviction is based on the actual actions taken rather than any exaggeration. What matters is a safe conviction and a lawful sentence.
One case that later influenced me involved a crime involving indecent images… The content was extremely serious. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced appropriately. Subsequently, his family discovered that the images depicted his childhood abuse, and other family members were also victims. While it didn’t absolve the crime, it altered my perception of it. It was a sobering reminder that the world is usually more complex than “victims and monsters.”. He declined to pursue the charges as a form of mitigation, but he was clearly trying to understand what had been done to him over the years, from infant to adult.
I would advise anyone aspiring to become a barrister to safeguard their reputation promptly. Social media has a long memory.
If I could change one thing about the justice system, it would be more honesty, especially an honest relationship between the system, the media, and the public. The public often does not understand what happens in court. The press is increasingly chasing outrage and clicks. Lawyers explain their cases very poorly and are often reluctant to speak about personal matters. As a result, public conversations become distorted, where any outcome that is not the most severe is perceived as “getting away with it.” We need political courage and a more adult debate: what outcomes do people really want in life—punishment, rehabilitation, or diversion— and what are they willing to pay for? Without that honesty, every other improvement sits on the sand. Any conspiracy theorist can call for being “tough…” We constantly think about these issues, but the situation is not as simple as it may seem. There are no monsters. There are people who may (or may not have) committed monstrous acts. The justice system cannot just let people sleep in their beds easily.
