There are around 10,000 barristers in independent practice known collectively as The Bar. The governing body being The Bar Council who like the Law Society acts as a kind of trade union, safe guarding the interests of barristers and also as a watchdog, regulating barristers training and activities.
To be a barrister you need to have a first or second degree, this doesn't have to be a degree in law; however, if they do qualify with a law degree they are exempt from the academic stage of training. Non-law applicants normally have to take a one-year course leading to the common professional examination or the postgraduate diploma in law.
All entrances then move to the vocational stage and study the bar vocational course at the Inns of Court School of law. In 1997, approval was given to outside institutions such as The Manchester Metropolitan University to run the bar vocational course. This allows them to extends their factual knowledge and advocacy skills with practical elements.
Students then have to join one of the four Inns of Court. The Inns of Court first emerged in the 13th Century and consist of, The Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Gray's Inn Temple, and The Lincoln Temple, all of which are located in London. The bar vocational course consists of, oral exercises, interviewing skills, and negotiating skills. And as with solicitors training, more emphasis has been laid on those practical aspects in recent years.
Until recently, students also had to dine at there inns 18 times (previously it was 24), this old fashioned and much criticised custom stemmed from the ides that students would benefit from the wisdom and experience of their elders if they sat among them at meal times. In 1997, the Bar Council announced that the dinning requirement would be reduced to 12 occasions and the dinners would be linked to seminar, lectures and training weekends.
After the vocational stage the entrant is called to the Bar but cannot take his own clients until he has completed at least six months of a twelve month pupillage.