The graduate advocate

Matthias Kelly, the new chairman of the Bar, fears a return to an elitist society if Labour's education reforms go ahead. He tells Robert Verkaik why

Matthias Kelly doesn't wear an old school tie or come from a famous legal family. As the son of a poor Northern Ireland farmer, Kelly is the very antithesis of a success-ful City lawyer and an unlikely leader of one of the country's most privileged professions.

His appointment as the new chairman of the Bar is testament to how far Britain has come in opening up the establishment to those whose advancement has nothing to do with where they went to school or who they know. So it is all the more alarming when Kelly chooses to use his first official speech to warn the Government that its policies on education could lead to a return to the bad old days – when privilege and class succeeded over honest graft and ability.

Kelly says that Labour's education reforms will create an elitist society in which the professions are dominated by people from rich and privileged backgrounds. He warns that further plans to bring in top-up fees for middle-class parents whose children want to go to university will exacerbate the problem. On this issue, Kelly, a comprehensive-educated pupil and one of eight children, is speaking from the heart.

He firmly believes that if he was starting out again he would have failed in his ambition to become a lawyer. "With my background, if I was starting today, I could not have afforded to go to university." And he further accuses Labour of double standards: "Many members of the present Government benefited from the grant system. There are vast numbers [of ministers] who came through the grant system, yet this Government has swept it away. I think, to put it at its lowest, that is regrettable. It is like kicking the ladder away."

The new leader of 14,000 barristers in England and Wales says the problems facing the legal profession are the same ones facing other professions. "Every single profession in Britain depends on a flow of graduates from universities. Most leaders of the professions in this country know that the brightest and the best students must get the chance to go university in the first place. Most leaders of the professions are now concerned that these proposals will deter the children of less well-off families from going to university. Professions which are concerned about the diversity are concerned about this."

But the Bar is not prepared to wait for Labour to announce a U-turn on its education policy. Instead Kelly has asked David Calvert-Smith QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, to head an inquiry into "the mounting cost" of access to a career at the Bar and the impact that "massive student debt" will have on diversity.

It is an issue which has already led to a split in the profession. On one side of the argument are the hugely profitable commercial chambers who see no reason to subsidise their less well-off colleagues. On the other are barristers like Cherie Booth QC, who have benefited from local authority grants and are genuinely shocked by stories of trainees having to shoulder debts of up to £30,000.

Kelly, a high-earning personal injury QC, can claim to have a foot in each camp and for the moment says he wishes to remain scrupulously neutral. His unique position means he is well placed in helping both sides to find common ground. Kelly insists Sir David will have a completely free hand and that nothing has been ruled out, including a return to the idea of taxing rich barristers to support entrants from poorer families. That idea was first canvassed by Sir Robin Mountfield but rejected by the Bar Council last year. Kelly wants to see "the energy that was put into commenting on the [Mountfield] proposals put on the table for the consultation."

The new chairman has inherited a profession which is in good shape. In just 20 years the Bar's membership has doubled from 4,589 in 1980 to 10,440 in private practice, plus 3,300 in employed practice, today. A recent survey shows that the profession's annual income is also growing with total receipts standing at between £1.4bn and £1.6bn, up almost £100m from the year before.

In the past few years there have been, for the first time, a handful of barristers who earned £2m a year. Such rich pickings has understandably led to accusations of "fat cats." Last year the Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Phillips, raised concerns about "extravagant" fees charged by some lawyers. But Kelly defends the richer end of the Bar: "I don't think that barristers earn extravagant fees. Yes, it's true that some members of the Bar earn extremely large sums. That is in the private market and that's what people are prepared to pay for their services. If that's what the market determines is the rate then I'm quite content with that. We live in a market economy. These are not barristers paid out of public funds."

Under Kelly the Bar looks set to grow further with the possibility of its ranks being swollen by solicitor advocates: "I want to see even more flexibility in movement backwards and forwards between the professions, between private practice, commerce and industry, and the Government Legal Service."

Kelly says "unnecessary regulation" must not stand in the way of greater cross fertilisation between the two branches of the profession. But this does not mean the beginning of the move towards fusion between solicitors and barristers. Far from it, says Kelly. "It may be that, ultimately, we should move towards a situation where the Bar regulates all advocates and the Law Society regulates all non-advocates. The former President of the Law Society, David McIntosh, made a similar suggestion. It may be that in the future something similar will happen."

Kelly hopes that such reforms might one day mean the profession will be able to choose its first black chairman – or even black chairwoman. But both ethnic minorities and women barristers are under represented among the higher echelons of the legal profession, particularly at Queen's Counsel level.

Kelly is quick to acknowledge that this is a problem. "Unfortunately it's a profession which makes enormous demands on people, and women, I recognise, have difficulty fulfilling their obligations to families – and they suffer as a result. That's something that the profession is well aware of and the profession has got to do something about it. I'm prepared to listen and do whatever I can to assist."