Chambers participation in COIC pupilage survey

A Pupillage Committee, set up by the Council of the Inns of Court (COIC), and chaired by David Blunt QC, has expressed concerns that the falling number of pupillages on offer is damaging to the Bar on a number of counts, including its drive to dispel its image as a profession which is only open to an elite drawn from wealthy backgrounds. Whilst recognising the pressures on chambers and the views of some that the number of pupillages should exactly equate with the number of tenancies likely to be on offer, the BSB shares these concerns. There is certainly a need to try and alleviate, somehow or other, the plight of the young who, though called to the Bar, cannot obtain pupillage.