You’ll never quite understand what it means to be a barrister until you grasp that they’re essentially running their own small businesses, advising on complex legal issues and advocating some of them before judges in court. Unlike solicitors nestled within company structures, barristers paddle their own canoes through legal waters—sometimes smoothly, sometimes against the current, but always independently.
Emily Windsor, barrister, with experience as a judge, knows this reality. Having practised since the mid-1990s, she’s navigated the choppy waters of self-employment through technological upheavals and cultural shifts, maintaining a thriving practice centred on property and agricultural law.
Running Your Own Legal Practice
Emily Windsor speaks candidly about the mental load that comes with the profession: “Client matters often occupy my thoughts beyond normal working hours. I find myself thinking through my cases during evenings and weekends. Fortunately I enjoy the work!”
Need a day off? Plan carefully around court appearances. Craving a proper holiday? Clear your diary weeks or months ahead. Domestic crisis? Tough luck—nobody else is prepped to cover that hearing that the client has spent weeks preparing for.
Windsor stresses the importance of regular contact with colleagues as some form of counterbalance to the isolation. She aims for almost daily Chambers attendance, which for her, provides important human connection, both at the level of socialising over a coffee, and discussing recent developments in the case law.
Chambers Colleagues Share Space But Not Cases
Stroll through any set of chambers and something odd greets you—dozens of bright legal minds sharing corridors yet operating completely independently of each other.
But despite this self-employed working structure, in most sets of Chambers there is a remarkable camaraderie and informal support network. Emily Windsor’s decades at Falcon Chambers highlight extraordinary stability rarely seen elsewhere: barristers typically plant roots and stay put. “Movement at the bar is not as common as it is with solicitors,” she observes, noting “even today, a common career trajectory is to join a set of chambers at 25 and leave at 65 or 70.”
Legal expertise accumulates within these walls—veterans share the wisdom that comes from experience and their younger colleagues keep them in touch with the realities of practice at the junior bar. Windsor characterises her chambers warmly as “really buzzy and friendly,” an environment where autonomy never equals abandonment.
Financial arrangements also differ fundamentally from law firms. Chambers function through expense-sharing rather than profit-sharing. Members contribute toward collective costs—buildings, support staff, computer systems, branding—while maintaining separate financial identities.
Digital Revolution Transforms the Ancient Profession
The digital revolution has certainly caused barristers to rethink their working practices.
Emily Windsor vividly recalls legal life prior to the digital era. “Three decades ago, accessing case law and legal textbooks required physical presence in the library, which created significant limitations for practitioners with external responsibilities,” she explains.
Technology swept through these archaic constraints like a hurricane. Online law reports, cloud document storage, video meetings —suddenly barristers could operate effectively from anywhere boasting reasonable WiFi. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated changes. Court appearances moved online, and lawyers could find themselves appearing before a judge from their home office, providing more freedom for a profession built around the self-employed model.
“Currently, practitioners have the flexibility to conduct their work remotely for extended periods and structure their schedule according to individual needs, as all essential materials are accessible through digital platforms.” Windsor reflects.
“This has also enabled changes in the way we interact as colleagues, and we now regularly hold Chambers meetings or engage in CPD online. This has led to a greater sense of inclusivity in some ways, particularly for those who work more from home, although I don’t think any remote experience is a complete substitute for interacting in person some of the time”.
Career Endurance Beyond Corporate Timelines
Emily Windsor notes how “people at the bar in their fifties and sixties and seventies are still regarded as being in their prime,” contrasting dramatically with corporate spheres where veteran professionals commonly encounter subtle nudges toward retirement. She adds that some of the most highly-respected judges are in their early seventies.
She personally represents such career satisfaction: “I’m not even sure really why I would want to retire because I wake up in the morning and I look forward to doing it.” Three decades into practice, her enthusiasm continues undiminished.
Sustaining career-long independent practice requires pacing. In the absence of the standard safety nets such as an HR department, or colleagues routinely covering during sickness, barristers must vigilantly manage their own wellbeing. Windsor emphasises that practitioners simply “need to look after themselves sometimes” to endure long-term.
Barristers also have to develop expertise in managing their own practices — financial management, continuing education investments, relationship building with solicitors, and mapping career advancement. Nobody directs their professional journey or recommends development opportunities; responsibility falls squarely upon individual shoulders.
Despite our contemporary digital world diverging massively from previous eras, Emily Windsor and her colleagues maintain practices structured around the same core principles and structures of independent practice that barristers adopted centuries ago. While solicitor firms become increasingly corporate and global, through international mergers and elaborate management structures, the self-employed London Bar endures—offering those flourishing under independence a distinctive professional environment where lawyers can hone their intellectual interests and advocacy skills with autonomy.
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