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In a recent article for Counsel magazine, I explored the familiar sting of professional rejection: the thud of a ‘no’ that lands in your inbox after months, sometimes years, of effort. The ‘not-today-thank-you-we’ll-let-you-know’. But this piece is about what happens next, if you do, by some miracle (and let’s be honest, it often feels like one), get the ‘yes’.
Yes to pupillage. Yes to tenancy. Yes to silk. Yes to that long-awaited judicial post. Cue the email from Chambers or the letter from the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC): ‘Congratulations, we are pleased to inform you…’ And just as you finish rereading it for the fifth time to check they haven’t made a clerical error, an unwelcome guest arrives: Imposter Syndrome. ‘They must have made a mistake.’
I hear this from silks. From junior judges. From newly minted tenants still finding the kettle in Chambers. One would expect that success brings a soothing balm of self-assurance. Instead, it often triggers a peculiar inner monologue that goes something like:
‘Well, I suppose they were short on applicants this year.’
‘Maybe I got through on some diversity quota.’
‘Maybe they’ve been hacked and someone’s playing a joke of which I’m the punchline.’
Why does success provoke such discomfort? The truth is that many of us in this profession are acutely aware of our failings. We are trained to anticipate the worst, to identify the weaknesses in our opponent’s case and our own. In court, this is a virtue. In your own mind, it becomes a trap.
It’s an odd shift: one moment you’re convinced you’re not good enough to succeed; the next, you’re convinced you’re not good enough to have succeeded. If rejection plants the seed of doubt, success ironically waters it down.
Part of the problem lies in our legal culture. The Bar prides itself on excellence, rigour and a healthy dose of cynicism. Confidence is expected, but modesty is revered especially the self-effacing kind that insists: ‘I’m just lucky, really.’ And then there is the curious British affliction of apologising for success, as though it might offend the room. ‘I know – I don’t know how I got it either.’
But perhaps the most common driver is simple: we often define ourselves by the pursuit, not the prize. After months of applying, interviewing, second-guessing and preparing, we become so attuned to striving that arrival feels anticlimactic or worse, fraudulent. I wrote my last article in anticipation of a rejection I was expecting. And now I write this article having received the congratulatory email from the JAC.
Let me offer you some heresy: Imposter syndrome is boring. Not yours personally, of course. I’m sure yours is rich and textured and supported by ample evidence from your childhood, career and the opinions of one particularly cutting silk in a robing room in 2011.
But the condition itself? Utterly pedestrian. Because almost everyone experiences it. It’s not a sign of being uniquely defective, it’s a sign of being competent, conscientious and in the wrong headspace.
It’s also fixable. Or, at the very least, manageable.
Yes, really. Take an afternoon, ideally a grumpy one, and write out every achievement, compliment, successful outcome, and moment of professional pride you can recall. Use facts. ‘Won that case at the Royal Courts of Justice despite being up against a silk and a hostile judge.’ ‘My opponent praised my cross.’ ‘Client cried with relief and said thank you.’
You are building a record, not for others but for yourself. Because your brain is brilliant at remembering the moments you felt like a failure and rubbish at recalling the wins.
Find the colleague, friend, partner, or sibling who knows you well enough to roll their eyes when you spiral. Ideally, the sort of person who’ll say, ‘Oh do shut up, you’ve earned it.’
Our internal narrative is often inaccurate. The cure? Let someone else read aloud the truth until it starts to sound like it belongs to you.
New tenants, judges and silks often wait to feel like the job title before behaving like it. Don’t. Instead, behave like it, and the feelings will catch up. Act as if you belong, because you do.
Truly. I’ve watched KCs fumble with bundles, judges admit uncertainty in chambers and senior colleagues privately confess doubts about their own decisions. Nobody is perfectly composed or all-knowing. The difference is they’ve stopped letting that stop them.
If you’ve achieved something significant, don’t rush past it. Mark it. Take your family out. Book that trip. Frame the letter (even if it feels gauche). These rituals aren’t self-indulgent, they’re reminders to yourself, for the days when doubt creeps in, that this happened, and it happened to you.
There is no mystical force handing out positions at random. You got where you are because of skill, determination and yes, sometimes luck and karma. But you’re not here despite who you are. You’re here because of it.
So let’s retire the language of accident. The tenancy wasn’t a fluke. The silk wasn’t a slip-up. The judgeship wasn’t the result of a cyber-attack. You weren’t the last candidate standing after everyone else was hit by a bus.
And if you were, well, you still got the job.
There will always be critics. Some will sit in silk gowns. Others will be whispering in your own head. Ignore both equally when needed.
If you’ve been appointed, selected or chosen, it’s not your job to justify it to everyone else or to yourself. It’s your job to do the job well, knowing full well that some days you’ll feel on top of the world, and others like you’re winging it with paper clips and bravado.
That’s perfectly normal. If anything, it’s a sign you care.
In the meantime, try this exercise: The next time someone congratulates you, resist the urge to say, ‘Oh, I was just lucky.’ Say instead, ‘Thank you.’ Full stop.
Because you did it. By some miracle, yes, but more likely by sheer talent, hard work and determination. Now go out and earn it every day not because you have to, but because you can.
I don’t know when I’ll next have a reason to vent and write an article, so I wanted to share this final thought. The Bar can be as warm and collegial as you like, but it can also be isolating and, at times, painfully lonely. You choose. And you choose by the way you treat others. Small acts of kindness matter. They accumulate. They set the tone. They tell someone else, ‘You’re not alone in this.’
Kindness at the Bar needn’t be grand or performative. It often lies in the quiet, thoughtful gestures that make the day a little more human. Offering to buy your opponent a coffee and a protein bar when the judge has got them working through lunch to draft a further statement or Scott Schedule. It’s not only appreciated, it’s a small act of solidarity. Barristers know how gruelling court days can be – missed meals, high stakes, endless notes. So helping your opponent sort out a Scott Schedule or sharing a precedent without fuss isn’t weakness; it’s professionalism with compassion. And there is absolutely nothing lost in quietly acknowledging that their cross-examination was razor-sharp, or that their skeleton argument was a cut above. We’re all colleagues, not combatants, and a rising tide lifts all ships.
Also… don’t be unnecessarily nasty. You can challenge the case without attacking the person. You can pick apart the facts without being gratuitously cutting in submissions. You’re not auditioning for a courtroom drama. If your opponent is struggling or clearly under pressure, don’t twist the knife. There is no prize for being the most personally unpleasant person in court that day. You do not look stronger; you just look insecure. And let’s not forget, it’s often the junior barrister, the one without support, or the advocate juggling a number of cases per day with little time to prep, who bears the brunt of those digs. Don’t be that person.
Judges, too, benefit from small tokens of understanding. A brief moment of grace, acknowledging how packed their list must be or submitting an agreed note that saves time, can go a long way. They are not automatons, but human beings navigating legal, emotional and often under-resourced terrain. As barristers, we can shift the tone of a hearing through courtesy, preparedness, and generosity. A quiet word in chambers or a thank you for how they managed a difficult case reminds them that the job they do, often in lonely, pressured conditions have not gone unnoticed. Bring back the taking out for dinner after a long trial. Praise, whether directed upwards or across the table, costs nothing but can fortify someone for the rest of the week.
So, if you’ve read this far: be kind. Be generous. Be decent. Not just because it’s good for others but because it will make your career, your courtroom days, and your own sense of belonging at the Bar that much richer. Warmth is a choice. Choose it.
‘The unspoken reality of rejection at the Bar’, Counsel, May 2025
‘The lost art of socialising at the Bar’, Counsel, August 2025
In a recent article for Counsel magazine, I explored the familiar sting of professional rejection: the thud of a ‘no’ that lands in your inbox after months, sometimes years, of effort. The ‘not-today-thank-you-we’ll-let-you-know’. But this piece is about what happens next, if you do, by some miracle (and let’s be honest, it often feels like one), get the ‘yes’.
Yes to pupillage. Yes to tenancy. Yes to silk. Yes to that long-awaited judicial post. Cue the email from Chambers or the letter from the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC): ‘Congratulations, we are pleased to inform you…’ And just as you finish rereading it for the fifth time to check they haven’t made a clerical error, an unwelcome guest arrives: Imposter Syndrome. ‘They must have made a mistake.’
I hear this from silks. From junior judges. From newly minted tenants still finding the kettle in Chambers. One would expect that success brings a soothing balm of self-assurance. Instead, it often triggers a peculiar inner monologue that goes something like:
‘Well, I suppose they were short on applicants this year.’
‘Maybe I got through on some diversity quota.’
‘Maybe they’ve been hacked and someone’s playing a joke of which I’m the punchline.’
Why does success provoke such discomfort? The truth is that many of us in this profession are acutely aware of our failings. We are trained to anticipate the worst, to identify the weaknesses in our opponent’s case and our own. In court, this is a virtue. In your own mind, it becomes a trap.
It’s an odd shift: one moment you’re convinced you’re not good enough to succeed; the next, you’re convinced you’re not good enough to have succeeded. If rejection plants the seed of doubt, success ironically waters it down.
Part of the problem lies in our legal culture. The Bar prides itself on excellence, rigour and a healthy dose of cynicism. Confidence is expected, but modesty is revered especially the self-effacing kind that insists: ‘I’m just lucky, really.’ And then there is the curious British affliction of apologising for success, as though it might offend the room. ‘I know – I don’t know how I got it either.’
But perhaps the most common driver is simple: we often define ourselves by the pursuit, not the prize. After months of applying, interviewing, second-guessing and preparing, we become so attuned to striving that arrival feels anticlimactic or worse, fraudulent. I wrote my last article in anticipation of a rejection I was expecting. And now I write this article having received the congratulatory email from the JAC.
Let me offer you some heresy: Imposter syndrome is boring. Not yours personally, of course. I’m sure yours is rich and textured and supported by ample evidence from your childhood, career and the opinions of one particularly cutting silk in a robing room in 2011.
But the condition itself? Utterly pedestrian. Because almost everyone experiences it. It’s not a sign of being uniquely defective, it’s a sign of being competent, conscientious and in the wrong headspace.
It’s also fixable. Or, at the very least, manageable.
Yes, really. Take an afternoon, ideally a grumpy one, and write out every achievement, compliment, successful outcome, and moment of professional pride you can recall. Use facts. ‘Won that case at the Royal Courts of Justice despite being up against a silk and a hostile judge.’ ‘My opponent praised my cross.’ ‘Client cried with relief and said thank you.’
You are building a record, not for others but for yourself. Because your brain is brilliant at remembering the moments you felt like a failure and rubbish at recalling the wins.
Find the colleague, friend, partner, or sibling who knows you well enough to roll their eyes when you spiral. Ideally, the sort of person who’ll say, ‘Oh do shut up, you’ve earned it.’
Our internal narrative is often inaccurate. The cure? Let someone else read aloud the truth until it starts to sound like it belongs to you.
New tenants, judges and silks often wait to feel like the job title before behaving like it. Don’t. Instead, behave like it, and the feelings will catch up. Act as if you belong, because you do.
Truly. I’ve watched KCs fumble with bundles, judges admit uncertainty in chambers and senior colleagues privately confess doubts about their own decisions. Nobody is perfectly composed or all-knowing. The difference is they’ve stopped letting that stop them.
If you’ve achieved something significant, don’t rush past it. Mark it. Take your family out. Book that trip. Frame the letter (even if it feels gauche). These rituals aren’t self-indulgent, they’re reminders to yourself, for the days when doubt creeps in, that this happened, and it happened to you.
There is no mystical force handing out positions at random. You got where you are because of skill, determination and yes, sometimes luck and karma. But you’re not here despite who you are. You’re here because of it.
So let’s retire the language of accident. The tenancy wasn’t a fluke. The silk wasn’t a slip-up. The judgeship wasn’t the result of a cyber-attack. You weren’t the last candidate standing after everyone else was hit by a bus.
And if you were, well, you still got the job.
There will always be critics. Some will sit in silk gowns. Others will be whispering in your own head. Ignore both equally when needed.
If you’ve been appointed, selected or chosen, it’s not your job to justify it to everyone else or to yourself. It’s your job to do the job well, knowing full well that some days you’ll feel on top of the world, and others like you’re winging it with paper clips and bravado.
That’s perfectly normal. If anything, it’s a sign you care.
In the meantime, try this exercise: The next time someone congratulates you, resist the urge to say, ‘Oh, I was just lucky.’ Say instead, ‘Thank you.’ Full stop.
Because you did it. By some miracle, yes, but more likely by sheer talent, hard work and determination. Now go out and earn it every day not because you have to, but because you can.
I don’t know when I’ll next have a reason to vent and write an article, so I wanted to share this final thought. The Bar can be as warm and collegial as you like, but it can also be isolating and, at times, painfully lonely. You choose. And you choose by the way you treat others. Small acts of kindness matter. They accumulate. They set the tone. They tell someone else, ‘You’re not alone in this.’
Kindness at the Bar needn’t be grand or performative. It often lies in the quiet, thoughtful gestures that make the day a little more human. Offering to buy your opponent a coffee and a protein bar when the judge has got them working through lunch to draft a further statement or Scott Schedule. It’s not only appreciated, it’s a small act of solidarity. Barristers know how gruelling court days can be – missed meals, high stakes, endless notes. So helping your opponent sort out a Scott Schedule or sharing a precedent without fuss isn’t weakness; it’s professionalism with compassion. And there is absolutely nothing lost in quietly acknowledging that their cross-examination was razor-sharp, or that their skeleton argument was a cut above. We’re all colleagues, not combatants, and a rising tide lifts all ships.
Also… don’t be unnecessarily nasty. You can challenge the case without attacking the person. You can pick apart the facts without being gratuitously cutting in submissions. You’re not auditioning for a courtroom drama. If your opponent is struggling or clearly under pressure, don’t twist the knife. There is no prize for being the most personally unpleasant person in court that day. You do not look stronger; you just look insecure. And let’s not forget, it’s often the junior barrister, the one without support, or the advocate juggling a number of cases per day with little time to prep, who bears the brunt of those digs. Don’t be that person.
Judges, too, benefit from small tokens of understanding. A brief moment of grace, acknowledging how packed their list must be or submitting an agreed note that saves time, can go a long way. They are not automatons, but human beings navigating legal, emotional and often under-resourced terrain. As barristers, we can shift the tone of a hearing through courtesy, preparedness, and generosity. A quiet word in chambers or a thank you for how they managed a difficult case reminds them that the job they do, often in lonely, pressured conditions have not gone unnoticed. Bring back the taking out for dinner after a long trial. Praise, whether directed upwards or across the table, costs nothing but can fortify someone for the rest of the week.
So, if you’ve read this far: be kind. Be generous. Be decent. Not just because it’s good for others but because it will make your career, your courtroom days, and your own sense of belonging at the Bar that much richer. Warmth is a choice. Choose it.
‘The unspoken reality of rejection at the Bar’, Counsel, May 2025
‘The lost art of socialising at the Bar’, Counsel, August 2025
The Bar Council continues to call for investment for the justice system and represent the interests of our profession both at home and abroad
By Marie Law, Director of Toxicology at AlphaBiolabs
AlphaBiolabs has made a £500 donation to Sean’s Place, a men’s mental health charity based in Sefton, as part of its ongoing Giving Back initiative
Q&A with Tim Lynch of Jordan Lynch Private Finance
By Marie Law, Director of Toxicology at AlphaBiolabs
By Louise Crush of Westgate Wealth Management
Six months of court observation at the Old Bailey: APPEAL’s Dr Nisha Waller and Tehreem Sultan report their findings on prosecution practices under joint enterprise
The Amazonian artist’s first international solo exhibition is wholly relevant to current issues in social and environmental justice, says Stephen Cragg KC
Despite its prevalence, autism spectrum disorder remains poorly understood in the criminal justice system. Does Alex Henry’s joint enterprise conviction expose the need to audit prisons? asks Dr Felicity Gerry KC
Until reforms are instituted and a programme of training is introduced, expert opinion on intimate partner abuse remains vital to realigning the tilted scales of law and justice, writes Professor Susan Edwards
It’s been five years since the groundbreaking QC competition in which six Black women barristers, including the 2025 Chair of the Bar, took silk. Yet today, the number of Black KCs remains ‘critically low’. Desirée Artesi talks to Baroness Scotland KC, Allison Munroe KC and Melanie Simpson KC about the critical success factors, barriers and ideas for embedding change
