But everyone knows that we (solicitors) are the lesser half of the profession 

No need to apologise. They are. 

The legal system will not be fixed until the solicitor/barrister distinction is removed

Depends.  A specialist City partner pulling in 2m a year may be amused at the idea that s/he's inferior to a barrister doing RTAs in Wolverhampton.  

Of course, in a commercial / corporate area, barristers get to do more detailed opinions.  Generally, I’ll do a quick opinion, and do a detailed Brief, but I simply don’t have the luxury of sequestering myself way to do a full-fat opinion; and obviously I’m years out of date re the White Book.  When I worked in-house for a listed company though, they relied exclusively on my opinions and stopped instructing barristers.  Barristers in general are better at detailed opinions simply because they do more of them.  Note in any event that senior people in major corporate clients do not even read opinions – they just want to know what the strategy is, and that requires an ability to fuse law, commerce and market sector awareness in your advice.  

I’d be very loath to abandon the split profession though.  Increasingly, as law firms (which used to treat their employees with a impersonal harshness, i.e., like adults) become increasingly infected with idiot nannying managerialism and a tendency to infantilise and micro-manage their employees, the greater independence and lack of faux-Pollyanna nannying in sets of chambers will seem more attractive, purely in terms of an adult working environment.  Although presumably the cultishness will in due course start to infect the bar also.     

And one of the key advantages of maintaining a split profession is that smaller law firms can access a senior barrister.  In a unified profession, lots of KCs would simply be hoovered up by City solicitor firms.   
 

Bold words from a chambers that shares a building with a business called "Marx Ayur Body Massage Northampton". Although I suppose it means that its "legal warriors" don't have to walk far to relax and unwind after a long day of battling it out in the provincial courtrooms of the South Midlands.

If you want to be all Jane Austenish about it: barrister are still strictly speaking esquires, whereas solicitors are gentlemen and gentlewomen. Once upon a time this would have got barristers preferential game rights and better seating at official occasions. Similarly, the Bar was traditionally deemed a profession, whereas solicitors (or attorneys as they then largely were) were ‘trade’. 

Note that none of this has any bearing whatsoever on actual legal knowledge, skill or success. 

The Bar is the senior branch of the profession. 

How is this remotely controversial?

Another one of those guild job protection dichotomies that the British have inherited for far too long at the expense of the general public, who have to pay for all this flummery for a straightforward assault and battery behind Iceland.

Barristers are obviously superior to solicitors in professional terms. Being a solicitor is an exercise in professional humiliation. All the analysis, pleading and advice is done by barristers. Solicitors then sit at the back of court, taking notes, whilst the barrister presents the case. There is no professional dignity in being a solicitor.

They do different jobs in the main so it’s like comparing apples and pears.  

Also I really don’t think any Partner at a top city firm earning £3-5m plus is going to care about this.  That’s more than almost all the top KCs.  

@Anonymous 16 January 26 11:31 - but as you well know, the money is irrelevant. An assessment of professional standing is based on the role you undertake. The litigation partner earning £3m whilst sitting at the back of court taking notes, when the Silk earning £1m a year is actually arguing the case (having advised on it, pleaded it, and written the skeleton argument), is obviously professionally inferior to the Silk (and by a huge margin). In the same way, a Bishop earning £30k a year has greater professional standing than a recruitment consultant on £500k.

As a failed barrister who became a solicitor, I'm afraid I agree

@1213

If you think money is irrelevant to lawyers you are probably not a lawyer.  

The litigation partner who is making more than the barrister plays a key part in managing the client, explaining the position to them, and feeding into strategy.   If you suggest otherwise and that any client is willing to pay £800-1100 an hour for them to be a passenger, against it suggests you’re probably not a lawyer or at least not a litigator.  

Different skills, different roles.  Not comparable.  

Also in transactional practices there are no equivalents to barristers.   The partners are the lead advisors on billion pound deals.   

 

Professional standing is very much influenced by how much money you earn and your status.  Do you really think anyone regards a junior barrister doing county court work  work as more senior and respected than a magic circle partner leading on multi billion pound deals earning 10-20 times more than the barrister?   If you do, you’re living in a cave.  

As a qualified Solicitor-Advocate I hold the same rights of audience as my friends at the bar. Does this make me even more superior to a mere Barrister, or am I only half useless as a garden or common solicitor. 

On a separate note - there seems to be some comments above that equate the monetary size of a case to its importance. This is a frustrating, snobby, and risible way to view the profession. There are far better metrics to compare different areas of law (intellectual complexity, importance to the client to name a couple). Subjective perhaps, but far better than simply using addition to decide what is important, or not.  

For example, brain surgery is often far less well renumerated than private practice orthopaedics. I don't see many arguing the brain surgeon is somehow the lesser. 

I know I am going to be massively down voted for this but there are far too many "city" lawyers who think because they sold their soul, for a six figure starting point, just to be note taking, basic bitch legal dogsbody (to another 30 year old egomaniac) means they are "better". You are not. You made a different choice but regardless of what mummy and daddy tell you - you are not that special. Now go whinge at your private members club and leave many of our hardworking brothers and sisters, in other arms of the profession, to make a real difference to peoples lives... not just the bank balance of a PE tosser, or huge international company. 

And before you all start, I have worked across all kinds of sectors, in big outfits and on billion plus cases. Some of the most challenging/rewarding jobs I ever did were for individuals and (hold your noses) pro bono.  

It's apples and oranges, not a hierarchy. A good solicitor sense checks and intellectually interrogates everything that they get through from Counsel to make sure that it's robust, defensible and achieves the client's objectives. A good Counsel will always prioritise the client's commercial objectives and take into account the views of his/her instructing solicitors in their advice. Some Flash Harry barrister types do still try to make it all about them and what they want to do, and are to be avoided, but thankfully the more time passes and the more of them retire from the profession and/or go to join the choir invisible, the fewer and further between they are becoming.

Imagine being a barrister in Northampton and thinking you are superior to others. Lol. 

I'm sure that Chartland Chambers (who have no KCs to their name) also feel superior to Falcon, Maitland, Blackstone Chambers, Brick Court Chambers, Fountain Court Chambers, 3VB, and 7KBW ;)

@Anonymous 16 January 26 13:18 - it is not that money does not matter to lawyers, but rather that it has no bearing on professional standing. A junior barrister on £150k is superior in professional terms to a City litigation partner on £2m, because the junior barrister has a substantive role in a case, whereas the City litigation is a post box for counsel and manages the litigation.

Solicitors simply manage litigation and sit behind barristers whilst counsel do all the work. No wonder the most able people go to the Bar.

@ Anonymous 16 January 26 13:18 "The litigation partner who is making more than the barrister plays a key part in managing the client, explaining the position to them, and feeding into strategy." But this is child's play compared to what counsel does: advising on the law, drafting pleadings, and conducting advocacy - whilst the solicitor sits behind, taking notes. Little wonder that the Bar is considered the senior branch of the legal profession and that barristers have far greater professional prestige than solicitors. 

I remember a US litigation attorney hearing about the role of English litigation solicitors, and saying, "They are just well-paid paralegals". He was right.

The funny thing about all this is that advice on disputes represents a tiny fraction of the value produced by the legal sector as a whole (i.e. in terms of value of services consumed/exported). The vast majority of solicitors never go near a dispute/deal with a bazza, so aren't really arsed. So this debate is essentially a bunch of public school chuds lecturing a bunch of different public school chuds about why they're less important because they sit further towards the back in a window-less room in the Rolls Building. Meanwhile you've got big dick-swingers like Neel Sachdev sipping lattes in boardrooms at the top of skyscrapers in the City and advising on deals that change the shape of the global economy, whilst out-earning everyone in that room in the Rolls Building (including the KCs). 🤷‍♂️

Anonymous 16 January 26 15:49 - but there is zero professional prestige in being a non-contentious solicitor, no matter how well you are paid. They are just deal brokers, who never encounter the law, and populate boiler-plate documents.

Superiority complex breeds arrogance.

“Their work primarily revolves around the desk”, it continued accurately, if a little hurtfully.

This got a laugh, followed by a sigh, from my desk of course

He does realize that there are also arbitration solicitors who are doing all the pleadings and advocacy right? They do the exact same work as barristers but on much larger, multi million and even billion dollar, cases. Very often senior arbitration solicitors / counsel / partners who are worth their price hold higher rights of audience, are extremely good advocates and strategic thinkers. They know every case law (including international law case law which is common in arbitration) that they rely on, inside out. I would say in 8 /10 of my cases (MC arb practice) clients opted not to ask that a barrister joins the team because there was no need. Especially where there are multiple solicitor advocates on the team with impressive arb track record.

Also, not to burst anyone’s bubble, but you don’t have to be a barrister to become a KC. Many excellent arb solicitors do as well. 

Overall, I came across shit solicitors and shit barristers, excellent solicitors and excellent barristers. What a silly way to create an unnecessary divide in the profession. 

@Anonymous 16 January 26, 16:34. What about the non-contentious lawyers that advise the various arms of government on the production of primary and secondary legislation? You do know it isn't the GLS that produces all of that (and the parliamentary draftsmen often have a more limited role than you think - they come in relatively late in the day to do a glorified proofread)? Private practice solicitors play a significant role in creating the statutory framework that the contentious side of the profession and the judiciary interpret, as much as it may pain them to realise that.

And in any event, how do you define/quantify "professional prestige"? Do you account for the opinions of lay people (whose views on the matter both barristers and solicitors seem for the most part to regard with ambivalence/scorn) or rather do you account for the opinions of those in the profession? If the latter, you'd likely find that the majority of practising legal professionals regard the debate as somewhat myopic/inconsequential and in any event most accurately summarised as one of apples vs pears, as others have already noted.

@Anonymous 16 January 26 17:31 - it’s well known that, when solicitors try to draft and do the advocacy in arbitrations, they do so to a far lower standard than the Bar. That is why most arbitration work is done by barristers. 

@Anonymous 16 January 26 18:14 - the public rightly think that barristers are superior to solicitors.

This kind of thread pulls in the kids at university or post *** their rubbed raw *** *** over the idea of their "status" and "prestige" being elevated by qualifying as a barrister.

Barristers are hired guns, they can get fired or replaced by the partners or their clients. Barristers typically have to ingratiate themselves hard with solicitors for business. You can't meet with partners with this attitude..

And someone above was right: money is the ultimate arbiter of success in law. it's all anyone really cares about. It's a numbers game. How many hours have your associates billed/ have you billed. Scoping the matter. Law firms pad. Insurance companies often pick up the bill. Barristers feel under pressure to look efficient (well, sometimes).

Someone above was right: money is not the ultimate arbiter of success in law. It’s about your substantive role. Which is why being a barrister is massively more prestigious than being a solicitor.

The thing about barristers is 99% of them public school poshos who can't talk to a lay client.

@Anonymous 18 January 26 10:00 - u ok hun

@10:00 - that's not true, most of those guys get loads of ladies.

Is it a bit questionable to do that with a client? I mean, I think so. But you can't deny it happens.

So they  apologised for stating so, but not for believing so?

Interesting to see that this comment section has apparently been flooded by barristers furiously downvoting any comments which suggest that solicitors have any worth to the legal profession whateover.

You're really covering yourselves in glory, chaps.

So they are sorry for saying that this was the case, not for believing that it was?