Name: Rachel Owusu-Agyei Chambers: Old Square Chambers Location: London University: Cambridge Undergraduate degree: Law
want access to more rights, but when seen from a wider societal perspective, there are more factors at play. That’s why there can be a significant divergence in decisions; when facing employment status questions, tribunals are often looking at how they affect the parties in front of them, rather than society at large.” Another topic certain to create work for future employment barristers is the protected characteristics under the Equality Act in the employment context: “How rights can sit simultaneously is something that crops up more and more in the tribunals – that is, competing rights that are pursued simultaneously and how they interact. A big question in the employment field is how employers deal with that, and the degree of latitude they have to make a decision that favours one group over another.” The daily grind Day-to-day work is, as you might expect, paperwork heavy, whether in tribunal hearings or during the extensive preparations leading up to them. Preparation, in fact, is the name of the game: “You deal with a large quantity of documents, so you’ll spend a lot of time reading and researching beforehand. You will continue to prepare until you enter the courtroom for whatever is ahead – it might be a cross-examination, it might be delivering submissions to the tribunal. Even in preliminary hearings, you still need to be very familiar with all the claims and facts, and what is likely to happen at the final hearing – what arguments are likely to come out and which facts still need to be settled.” The reams of paperwork, while integral to the system, can also be a spanner in the works, not least because the digital revolution hasn’t yet fully transpired in the legal sector. “It can be frustrating, how inefficient the court system in this country sometimes is – especially with employment work, which is still very much on paper,” explains Rachel. “Not having a
printed copy of a certain document can really derail things.” The legal aid crisis has also hit hard: “As a result of our current system, a lot of people cannot afford legal advice, so when I act for a respondent, I’m often against litigants-in-person. Employment law is becoming increasingly technical, so the system is becoming even more difficult for those without representation and one of the challenges is learning to manage this.” Regardless of the pitfalls, what keeps Rachel coming back is the human interest at the heart of every claim. She warmly recalls her first unfair dismissal claim: “I was acting for the claimant, and I really saw the power of advocacy at that stage – to have someone represent you, acting on your behalf and explaining the situation to a judge, and to have a determination made when you know you’ve been treated unfairly but no one else has agreed with you. The claimant was emotional because of the long struggle that he’d had to get the determination; it was powerful.” Persevere! The two words that Rachel stresses when asked for wisdom to impart to budding barristers is ‘resilience’ and ‘perseverance’: “Be ready to do the work! Along with good academics, get in some work experience to demonstrate your interest in the field and to make sure you want to do this – and get along to a tribunal hearing to see how it works. This also shows that you are self-motivated; at the Bar you have to manage your time effectively to make sure your work is done. I don’t know anyone who has had a straightforward journey to pupillage; so a lot of perseverance and resilience are required to get to pupillage stage and then to have a successful career at the Bar.” If you’re genuinely interested in the law and people though, Rachel describes it as “the perfect job – you engage with people and their stories and see them through what is a fascinating system.”
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