When the Black British Business Awards named Laurie-Anne Power KC its Professional Services Senior Leader in October, the recognition landed more than a quarter-century after she was called to the Bar. Power now practises in criminal law and sits as a Bencher at Middle Temple. One of the most revealing accounts of her career, though, concerns an earlier moment when she had secured a place to train and still needed to work out how to afford it.
In a 2024 essay for Counsel magazine, Power wrote that she entered the profession as a single parent on an unfunded pupillage. Scholarships from Middle Temple made it possible for her to complete the training, she said. The financial obstacle was concrete. Getting a place gave her access to the work she needed to learn. The scholarships gave her the means to stay through the training. Anyone assessing how open a profession is should pay attention to what happens between those two points.
What an offer makes possible
Pupillage is supervised work-based training for barristers in England and Wales. Under the current route described by the Bar Standards Board, the first period is usually six months and non-practising. In the second period, usually another six months, pupils practise under supervision once the relevant conditions are met. Power’s own account describes the circumstances she faced around the start of her career. The regulator’s description of today’s route explains why this stage matters: it is the point at which classroom work becomes supervised responsibility for the work of a barrister.
For an entrant weighing that commitment, funding shapes practical decisions long before their first case. They may need to arrange travel and care, budget for the months before practice and understand how much time they can devote to training. An award of money can change which of those choices is open. It also matters when a candidate knows what is available. A decision that arrives after a prospective pupil has had to turn down a place cannot serve the same purpose as support confirmed in time to plan. These are questions institutions can examine without assuming every applicant has the same costs.
Power’s experience also shows the limits of a solution centred entirely on money. In her essay she recounts being repeatedly sent out of class in primary school in East London. She describes her parents challenging the headteacher’s assessment of her and resisting a proposed transfer. She interprets that early exclusion in the light of her experience of racism, and writes about hearing some of the same worries from aspiring barristers many years later. Her recollections concern her own schooling and professional experience. They help explain why her work on access extends from financing to how people are seen and taught once they get through the door.
From trainee to trainer
Middle Temple records Power’s call to the Bar in July 2000 and her call to its Bench in July 2023. Power writes that she was appointed silk in March 2022. Silk is the professional shorthand for appointment as senior counsel. Her present title, King’s Counsel, is denoted by the letters KC. Her work as a criminal barrister has included appearances before the Court of Appeal and work on the international criminal trials in Sierra Leone, according to her Inn. These milestones record different parts of her career: admission, senior professional distinction and a formal role in the institution that helped fund her training.
The Inn also lists a less public set of responsibilities. Power has taught criminal evidence, advocacy and ethics, chaired pupillage at her chambers and mentored young people through schools and charities. The responsibilities act at different stages. Teaching can make the expectations of advocacy visible while a student is learning. A pupillage committee can examine what a recruitment exercise asks candidates to demonstrate. Mentoring can help a prospective applicant understand a decision that looks opaque from the outside, such as how to use feedback after an unsuccessful attempt. Power’s record shows she has worked at each of those points. The available sources give no basis for counting how many entrants subsequently secured a place because of that work.
That distinction matters when chambers review their own practices. A committee could check whether applicants receive selection criteria far enough ahead to prepare, whether exercises test the skills needed in practice, and whether pupils have a reliable way to ask about funding or raise a concern. It could also examine who progresses between stages and whether candidates understand why they did or did not advance. Individual mentoring has real value, but institutions control the rules and feedback that shape the experience of everyone who applies.
The question an institution can answer
In Counsel, Power describes the pride she felt at becoming silk and her unease with being discussed primarily as a number in the profession’s history. In her telling, the number said little about the ability of the Black colleagues she had worked with. That tension gives the October award some context. Her career can be recognised on its own merits while her account of getting started prompts more precise questions about who can pursue the same route.
One of those questions is simple enough for any training provider to answer. If someone earns a place but cannot meet the costs of taking it, what information and support will reach them befƒore they have to decide? The answer will differ by institution and applicant. Power’s account gives a reason to ask it early. She identifies the scholarships as the difference between securing a place and being able to finish the training that let her do the work.
