Excellence is a professional value that every barrister holds dear. We aspire to it in ourselves. We admire it in others. It underpins the ethos of client service that lies at the heart of this wonderful profession. Diversity is another value embraced by the modern Bar. And while the senior ranks still echo the attitudes of the past, it is fair to say that huge strides in achieving numerical diversity have already been made, particularly in the junior Bar (Diversity at the Bar, Bar Standards Board (BSB), January 2024). This progress is a powerful reminder of what can be achieved with purposeful action and strong leadership.
Increasing diversity raises an important question: how do we create a safe culture of belonging for a diverse profession that will encourage and support future generations of excellent practitioners?
This is an important question because without a sense of safe belonging tensions remain hidden, creativity is stifled, and people cannot perform at their best. It is important for diversity in its fullest sense, including but extending beyond those with protected characteristics to anyone whose performance may require understanding or adjustments of some sort: carers, single parents, career changers, part-timers to name a few.
This article examines this question from a systemic perspective, that is, at the level of relationship. It explores the hidden dynamics of inclusion and belonging; their implications for excellence within the profession; and suggests a framework for action to create what is needed.
My aim is to raise awareness, start conversations, and inform supportive steps.
A word on my perspective. I am a barrister, professional systemic coach and therapist, and a mixed-race son of immigrants, and I write equally from each stance. Within me and my immediate relationship systems are multiple identities: Indian, Irish, English, East African, Barbadian, Pakistani, Catholic, Muslim, Protestant, Jewish, colonised, coloniser, black, white, brown, working class, middle class… the list could go on. I appreciate that everyone reading this will have their own places of belonging, too. Beneath the surface humans are complex – and quite wonderful.
The starting question: what is belonging?
Safe, secure belonging is a deep human need. It anchors our sense of personal safety, survival and wellbeing. Our primary group of belonging is our family of origin, or primary care group if adopted or fostered. These are the people who raise us into adulthood, the places where we learn our relationship style, our level of trust in the wider world, and where we absorb the values of those who have come before us. Other birth groups also instil strong ties of belonging, such as race, ethnicity, culture, religion and social class. People naturally identify with other members of their group, and for the same reason see differences in those outside the group. We all know that it is easier to get along when we have things in common.
Policing our belonging are feelings of innocence and guilt. When we comply with in-group rules, we feel secure, good and innocent. When we test or break the rules, we feel guilty or shameful. If you recall being told off as a child for breaking a family rule, or the look on your own child’s face when they are told off, you have witnessed this in action. It is the reason why both sides in armed conflict can kill in good conscience: each is right from their own perspective. The unconscious nature of much of our belonging is also why it creates blind spots in our awareness of our own behaviour. We should never confuse good intentions with good outcomes. The expression ‘blind loyalty’ has deep roots.
Workplace dynamics operate in similar ways and the Bar is no different. It is a group with its own rules of belonging. We can start to uncover them by asking, ‘What do I need to be like to be a barrister?’ At surface level, some rules seem fairly clear: educated, motivated, dedicated to excellence, resilient, service-orientated, articulate and so on. Then there are the stereotypes, often tainted with subjectivity: public school educated, Oxbridge graduated, white, male, and so on. Deeper still are the inside rules that we discover on crossing the threshold to belonging. Rules like ‘to succeed you must burn the midnight oil’, ‘never say no to work’, ‘you’re only as good as your last case’, ‘you must never make mistakes’, ‘the client’s fate rests on your shoulders’, ‘life at the Bar is stressful’, ‘it’s always feast or famine’. Each of us will have our own beliefs of what the rules are, and they will differ in truth, weight and acceptance depending on our outlook and experience. Importantly, they have arisen organically over time rather than been created by design. They are a legacy from a time when the Bar was not diverse.
What does all this mean for the subject at hand?
It means this: the extent to which aspiring or actual barristers feel able to conform to perceived rules of belonging is a measure of their barriers to entry to the profession, and their comfort and security once in the profession. For the same reason, a lack of clarity, certainty and transparency over professional cultural norms can foster doubt and insecurity. Thus, the doorway to inclusion is belonging; and genuine inclusion depends on the strength and safety of that belonging.
Now there is the catch. By the same doorway, and in the same direction, we reach exclusion too. It is important we understand why. By joining a new group and its values, we often pull against the values of our existing group. The trailblazing and multi award-winning lawyer Akil Hunte is a case in point. He was brought up near the Grenfell estate in London and has spoken powerfully about the need to protect his ambition from others in order to succeed. People within his community do not become lawyers, and so his aspirations were at odds with his belonging. Many who are trailblazers within their own families will be familiar with the tug-back of being the first, with the voices of the naysayers. So it is that those bringing diversity to the Bar often face a double challenge. They are not only navigating a new belonging. They are also navigating an unbelonging as well.
What has safe belonging got to do with excellence?
Everything.
First let me explain what I mean by safe belonging. I am referring to a culture that displays the attributes of what organisational psychologists and coaches refer to as psychological safety.
Psychological safety is a phrase coined by Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson to describe a culture where people believe that they will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes. Google’s famous Project Aristotle studied numerous teams over a five-year period and concluded that psychological safety was the single most important factor in team performance. The reason why links back to belonging. Since we are all conditioned to protect our belonging, to try and fit in and avoid the risk of exclusion, we tend to steer our behaviour towards conformity rather than self-expression, towards compliance rather than challenge. This means that within groups, people often quite naturally hold back contributions or concerns rather than speak out. This in turn impacts work performance, stress and anxiety. Those who feel more like outsiders default to this caution more readily. Those who feel like they already fit in have greater safety and hence greater freedom and confidence. A culture of psychological safety is a counterweight against the baseline. It is a way of levelling the playing field within a diverse profession.
As Randall Kiser in his excellent book Soft Skills for the Effective Lawyer (CUP, 2017) remarks:
What Project Aristotle has taught people within Google is that no one wants to put on a ‘work face’ when they get to the office. No one wants to leave part of their personality and inner life at home. But to be fully present at work, to feel ‘psychologically safe’ we must know that we can be free enough, sometimes, to share the things that scare us without fear of recriminations… (quoting Charles Duhigg, author of Smarter Faster Better)
The more that can be brought to work, the less that needs to be left behind. Hence, safe belonging helps people to more comfortably loosen their ties to their existing groups so they can align themselves more closely with work culture. Aligned working is productive, enjoyable and creative. Research indicates that the capacity to navigate both belonging and unbelonging is a key attribute of successful cultural change (D. Rowland et al., How to Get Your Team on Board with a Major Change, Harvard Business Review, Thursday 4 August, 2022).
Unsafe or uncertain work environments have the opposite effect. The term ‘covering’ is used to describe the strategies used by people in the workplace to manage or downplay their differences for fear of being disapproved of, discriminated against or excluded. This leads people to actively obscure their identity, thoughts and opinions in an attempt to fit in. Covering destroys personal and organisational wellbeing because it diverts energy away from work as it stifles creativity and contribution. The nature of the problem keeps it hidden from view.
What can we all do to create a culture of safe belonging?
The steps that are being taken to increase diversity need to be matched with steps to create a culture to support diversity. Below I suggest four strands of action.
First, take leadership.
Professional institutions (the Bar Council, BSB, Inns of Court, Bar Associations, The Institute of Barristers’ Clerks, chambers) have an essential role to play here, leveraging their position as points of belonging and communion for individual practitioners, and using their status and influence within a profession that is intensely hierarchical. We should also be mindful that the size and style of individual chambers varies greatly, which may indicate a need for different kinds of support in different cases. Individual practitioners from all levels can also take a lead. While the self-employed structure of the Bar can present barriers to unified change across the profession, these same structures also give each of us the freedom to choose to act. None of us should underestimate what we might do or mean for others. Collaboration is helpful. Junior practitioners and students have been particularly impressive in bringing diversity awareness to the Bar, and senior members can use their inspiration.
Secondly, purposefully create and live a new culture.
Being purposeful – conscious and intentional – is important. Legal culture, like the common law, tends to grow organically and gradually over time. But if we are to create and maintain a culture that is supportive of the rapid changes we are seeing in the field of diversity, we might want to be more pro-active and deliberate. Cultural change and development are the mainstream of the working world outside the Bar. There are many resources and processes available to build culture which institutions and practitioners can call upon.
Living a new culture is also important. Cultural values are not created by words on a page, but by lived behaviour. The Bar needs to move beyond general statements about equal opportunity and support for diversity and engage in the detail of what this actually means for the day-to-day practice of barristers and their professional relationships. Culture needs to embed itself within professional standards.
What does this mean, exactly? Let us take the example of how case conferences are run. This is a good example because conferences are a bread-and-butter part of Bar work, and they are client-facing. Culture will impact how a silk leads a junior; how a pupil learns from their supervisor; how the public (including future barristers) perceive the profession.
We can ask: what are the standards expected from barristers when leading teams? Are we expected to invite conversations about personal workstyles and preferences? To support open discussions about out of work commitments such as caring responsibilities, family demands, religious obligations and the like? To invite opinions from all members of the team when making decisions? To acknowledge contributions from others? To give feedback? To support accountability? To model openness and the sharing of perspectives? To step in to prevent interruptions or encourage others to overcome hesitancy? These behaviours are all hallmarks of inclusive leadership within modern professional life. Bar education and culture needs to catch up with them. The BSB’s Professional Statement provides a ready foundation for teaching, learning and building the skills and ways of being that impact culture. It is a good starting point.
Thirdly, be mindful of the stories we tell, and who we tell them to.
Recently, I was fortunate to hear the transgender barrister Robin White tell her inspiring story of the support she received from within the profession while transitioning and maintaining a flourishing practice in chambers. It touched everyone lucky enough to hear it. She ended with words that have stuck with me ever since: ‘the Bar is a place where you can live as you.’
Not everyone would agree. Many have experienced negative treatment because of their background or circumstances. But if we take responsibility as creators of culture and agents of change, we need to look beyond ourselves. Telling aspiring barristers stories that life at the Bar will be hard because of their backgrounds sets them up for a life of struggle. It lowers expectations and normalises acceptance rather than change. Worse still, it may simply turn away the very people the Bar wants to attract. Whilst we should never diminish people’s personal experiences, we can be mindful of how we frame our stories. There is a real difference between stories that inspire, and stories that lure the listener into sharing our personal grievances as if they will become theirs, too. This is not a call for complacency or silence: quite the opposite. It is a request to empower others rather than weaken them. There is a need to be discerning.
Fourthly, be brave.
People get on best when they understand each other, and we need to understand each other if we are to build a better culture. Understanding arrives with open dialogue, genuine curiosity and aligned goals. There is a risk that certain perspectives in this field can stifle the conversations that need to happen, for fear of causing offence or simply because certain conversations are seen as taboo (see Pluckrose and Lindsay, Cynical Theories (Swift, 2020). The irony cannot be lost on anyone who thinks a little deeper about this subject. We have a shared responsibility. I invite us to be brave enough to dip our collective toes in the uncertain water without undue fear of the depths. We may be surprised at how refreshing the water feels. The Bar is renowned as a profession of independent thinkers of the highest calibre who enjoy the process of rich discourse. This spirit can assist here, too.
Final thoughts
I end with the words of Mass Ndow-Njie, barrister, Middle Templar, and founder of the ground-breaking charity Bridging the Bar. The charity is dedicated to lowering access to the Bar and maximising opportunities for those seeking to join it from diverse backgrounds. Mr Ndow-Njie is a great example of leadership from the junior Bar. He says this:
If we embrace ourselves, our unique stories and our varied cultures, we can create a ‘new normal’ in the profession. In this new normal, there will be no such thing as the ‘conventional’ image of a barrister. Instead, barristers will be as diverse as the society that we live in and diverse as the clients that we represent.
To everyone who cares about our great profession, I ask: what will you do to greet the new normal with a culture worthy of its arrival?
Article photo CREDIT Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik
James Pereira KC practises at FTB and is a former Visiting Professor at King’s College, London. He is also a certified executive and organisational coach, NLP Master Practitioner and systemic family therapist. In 2018 he co-founded The Libra Partnership, which specialises in coaching and training lawyers. He speaks and publishes widely on lawyer performance and wellbeing and is a mental health champion for the charity Law Care.
