Barrister's clerk: Employers and vacancy sources

Barristers' clerks work for a set of barristers' chambers, most of which are located in London and other major cities, such as Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester. There are a few firms now offering online clerking services to barristers who work from home and these may be based anywhere in the country.

A barristers' chambers is generally run as a trade association, with a constitution and an arrangement for each barrister to pay a sum towards the running costs of chambers, including the salaries of the barristers' clerks. Some chambers have formed a management company and delegate the running of the chambers to a management committee, to which the senior clerk would be responsible.

In Scotland, the equivalent position to a barrister's clerk is an advocate's clerk, working for advocates in a 'stable' or chamber and most are employed by Faculty Services Ltd, which is a division of the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh. Although the duties are broadly similar, the role does not involve proactively seeking work.

Sources of vacancies

• Institute of Barristers' Clerks (IBC)
• Chambers People - a specialist recruitment agency.
• Websites of individual chambers.
• Legal Hub - provides a directory of chambers for speculative approaches.
• Local press.

The majority of vacancies are in London, so if you wish to work outside London, you should make speculative approaches to chambers directly.

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