At DSC we are committed to promoting careers in the law to those from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds. We want to stifle the myth that there is an acceptable way to look, talk or act to be a member of the Bar. Through our outreach work, we aim to inspire, and provide access and resources, to those who may have not been able to previously consider a career at the Bar.
Our current outreach initiatives are listed below.
DSC have launched an annual essay writing competition aimed at people aged 16-18. The topics selected will be done so in the spirit of DSC’s ethos and commitment to human rights and civil liberties, challenge conventional thinking related to a career at the Bar and drive aspiration. Click below for further information about the 2020-21 submission window.
In October 2020, DSC are launching an essay writing competition aimed at people aged 16-18.
The competition will require applicants to please prepare up to 1,500 words on the following question:
In answering the question, you may wish to:
Focus on a particular area or aspect of authority; for example, the police, teachers, government decision-making bodies (national or local), or other public service.
Refer to your own lived experiences or examples of lived experiences.
Think about legal or policy solutions to the experiences you identify, or ways in which people in positions of power or authority could change their behaviour to address identified issues.
Whilst persuasive analysis and well-structured argument are important, we are particularly interested in creative, thoughtful and original ideas. The content of your essay is most important, and that it closely engages with the essay question.
Deadline: Closing date for all submissions 31 January 2021. Download the application form by clicking here.
Assessment and prize: The final ten essays will be put forward to a prestigious judging panel and shortlisted students will be invited to Chambers in March 2021 (all travel fees to be covered) with parents if necessary, where the winner and runners up to be announced and awarded a cash prize and ongoing access to mentoring service for the next 12-24 months.
Judges: David Lammy MP, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Wayne Jordash QC, Geoffrey Robertson QC, Rt Hon Lord Stephen Irwin, Ulele Burnham, and Nani Jansen Reventlow.
Interested in a career at the Bar?
Participants at the DSC Open Day will have the opportunity to explore their aspirations to join the Bar with barristers and staff from DSC.
Participants at the DSC Open Day will have the opportunity to explore their aspirations to join the Bar with barristers and staff from DSC. Presentations will cover the role and life of a barrister; the skills required to be a successful barrister; how to enter the profession; the options available to new entrants and how to use the law to achieve social justice. There will be sessions to discuss a career at the bar for those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and those with disabilities.
Attendance is open to individuals and groups of school pupils or 6th form students. DSC is particularly keen to encourage applications from state schools pupils and those who may feel their demographic is underrepresented at the Bar.
The Open Day will take place in November 2021. People may apply for a place from 1 June 2021. Further information to be announced soon.
Doughty Street are a partner of the flagship @bridgethebar mini-pupillage scheme. #BridgingTheBar is a charity committed to the promotion of equal opportunities and diversity at the Bar, at all professional levels. DSC are looking forward to welcoming Mini Pupils via the Bridging the Bar initiative in 2021. The scheme’s purpose is to take positive action by offering work experience to students who are from under-represented or disadvantaged groups and/or who have low incomes. An under-represented group is a group which is under-represented at the Bar in particular those from Black, Asian and other minority groups and those with disabilities.
The Bridging the Bar mini-pupillage scheme aims to 'bridge the bar' through the provision of mini-pupillages to students from backgrounds that are traditionally underrepresented at the Bar. BTB hopes to tangibly change the reality and narrative at the Bar, such that the Bar is no longer the singular preserve of the privileged.
BTB undertakes an assessment of applications utilising a rigorous process, including contextual recruitment indicators. This ensures that those from less traditional backgrounds have their achievements properly assessed within the application process.
Students can apply for the BTB mini-pupillage scheme here.
Doughty Street Chambers supports the Inner Temple Pegasus Access and Support Scheme (PASS), each year offering three placements of one week each. PASS is open to university students from second year onwards. It is also open to GDL students but not to BPTC students.
Doughty Street Chambers supports the Inner Temple Pegasus Access and Support Scheme (PASS), each year offering three placements of one week each.
PASS is open to university students from second year onwards. It is also open to GDL students but not to BPTC students.
All students on the programme are on track to have a 2:1 or above, have studied at a UK state secondary school and come from one of the following socio-economic backgrounds:
First in their family to attend higher education;
Parents were in receipt of either Income Support or Housing Benefit; or the candidate themselves received Free School Meals at some point while they were in school; or
Care leavers: the candidate was in care at some point during their time in school.
The application round starts in October and closes in November each year. The scheme provides one mini-pupillage per student along with a skills development programme. However, given the situation with Covid, PASS do not anticipate opening applications again until June 2021.
More information about the scheme and how to apply can be found on the Pegasus Access and Support Scheme website.
We are proud to be using Rare's Contextual Recruitment System (CRS) which allows us to consider applicants' achievements in the context in which they were gained. We understand that not every candidate’s achievements look the same on paper – and we want to recruit the best people, from every background.
Rare launched the Rare Contextual Recruitment System (CRS) in 2015 to help recruiters put students’ achievements in context, taking into consideration the academic, socioeconomic and personal disadvantage they might have faced. The CRS was also designed to help recruiters identify outperformers – students who performed better than the average student in their A Level year – using a Performance Index (PI).
Since then they have contextualised over 750,000 candidate applications using the following measures of disadvantage: KS5 and KS4 school percentile, free school meals, first generation to attend university, home postcode at 16, excessive work during term time, time spent in care, coming to the country as a refugee or asylum seeker and being a registered carer.
Doughty Street Chambers barristers are working with Urban Synergy, an award-winning early intervention mentoring charity that helps hundreds of young people reach their full potential through outcome focused mentoring programmes, inspirational seminars and work experience.
Doughty Street Chambers barristers are also working with THEMIS, the Intersectional Women Barristers’ Alliance, was born out of a desire to promote an activist, progressive and intersectional agenda aimed at representing the interests of all self-identifying women at the Bar. THEMIS was created to fill what was perceived to be a gap. One of the key pillars on which Themis was built is the understanding that gender equality can only be seriously advanced if we all work collectively and with women from all backgrounds, identities and age groups, as well as with other underrepresented groups.
Urban Synergy is a black-led, registered charity which supports young people from Black Minority Ethnic and disadvantaged households to access early career opportunities in the professions. Urban Synergy is an award-winning early intervention mentoring charity that has helped hundreds of young people between 10 - 18 years of age reach their full potential through outcome-focused mentoring programmes, seminars, and work experience programmes.
Participating members of Chambers will be matched with students from Years 11, 12 or 13 (aged 16 -18 years) who have registered themselves for the programme.
Themis’ mission is to advance the rights of women at the employed and self-employed Bar at every stage of life, from access to the profession to retirement; to tackle the gender inequality and structural inequalities affecting women at the Bar; to inform members and the Bar more broadly about particular issues facing women at the Bar; to create an inclusive network of women at the Bar; to progress the rights of women by widening access to justice for women litigants, and to incentivise research, discussion and proposals for reform of the law and legal processes that primarily or disproportionately affect women and women's rights.