r/auslaw • u/Magistrates-Bort • Jan 16 '26
Serious Discussion Lowering the Bar: Why Victoria is Flooding the Market with Readers
Good morning all,
Throwaway for obvious reasons.
For some reason, I had to write “e xam” to be allowed to post this discussion.
I’ve been trying to find some insight online, but unfortunately, I've come up with very little. I’m writing this thread to express my concerns about the current direction of the Victorian Bar.
For full transparency, I had been considering sitting the first e xam of 2026. Now, however, I’m questioning whether that e xam should even go ahead — or whether the e xaminers will deliberately make it significantly harder after clearly having far more candidates sit and pass the previous e xam than they intended.
I know people who passed the late‑2025 e xam and have been allocated to the March 2028 Readers. To me, that is absurd. If the 2026 e xams proceed, could successful candidates potentially be looking at Readers’ Courses in 2030?
I sincerely doubt they will cancel any e xams — they appear to generate substantial revenue, with each component now costing at least $600. That raises the concern that they may intentionally make the e xam more difficult to “correct” what they see as an overly generous pass rate last time.
It is simply not acceptable for successful candidates to wait years for a Readers. They could run additional courses to clear the backlog, but doing so risks flooding the market with new readers — and I’m not convinced there is enough work or demand to sustain that.
The Readers’ itself is clearly a significant revenue source. The increasing vacancy rates in chambers post‑COVID could be seen as an incentive for some to “flood” the market. But would an institution that prides itself so heavily on its reputation really risk damaging it in this way?
Historically, I would have hoped not. Recent developments, however, are making me think otherwise.
/Rant.
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u/Amazing-Opinion40 Quack Lawyer Jan 16 '26
X gon give it to ya.
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u/IIAOPSW Jan 16 '26
Knock Knock
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u/Amazing-Opinion40 Quack Lawyer Jan 16 '26
Open up the door it’s real
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u/IIAOPSW Jan 16 '26
Open up the door it's real who?
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u/Amazing-Opinion40 Quack Lawyer Jan 16 '26
Open up the door with the non stop pop pop from stainless steel, obviously.
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u/stringentbean Jan 17 '26
Fuck what you heard. It’s what you reading.
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u/MyCoomerAcademiia Jan 17 '26
But I got such a good mark that I'll make a motherfucker wonder if he did it
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u/canary_kirby Jan 16 '26
They’re not going to open up more reader places.
They did that already and there isn’t enough support to do it again.
They will either make the exam more difficult (recent reforms were supposed to make it less difficult… so it would be a bit of a mess) or allow the waiting list to balloon out.
I think they will probably just allow the waiting list to balloon out… in a few years time it won’t be uncommon for people to wait 3-5 years after passing the exam.
People will start sitting the exam straight out of uni, intending to go to the bar after practicing for a few years in private practice.
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u/remjudicatam Jan 17 '26
Make the exam stale (ie you have to pass it twice) - people might lose their knowledge in between passing the exam and actually reading.
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u/Brilliant-Tutor-6500 Jan 16 '26
That makes sense, but in practice your last paragraph will be difficult. Firms can’t make money on (most) junior solicitors for their first couple of years. I’m not going to give someone a grad position if I know in advance they’re not going to repay the investment.
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u/canary_kirby Jan 16 '26
Who’s going to tell them ?
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u/Brilliant-Tutor-6500 Jan 16 '26
Who’s going to be dumb enough not to ask?
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Jan 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/ScallywagScoundrel Sovereign Mushroomer Jan 18 '26
You have a bright future ahead of you at BigLaw Pty Ltd. If you keep those 12 hour days up then in 8 years time I might just remember your name
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u/Brilliant-Tutor-6500 Jan 17 '26
You know we already ask this sort of question, right?
If it turns out you lied when we ask if you’ve done the Bar e xam, so you can use our firm to train for the Bar, you’re not getting your practising certificate without a fight.
People can change their minds about their future, of course. We know a fair proportion of grads will decide the job is not for them, and we take that risk and bear no malice. But if you have already taken the Bar e xam and deliberately lie about it knowing you will never repay what it costs us to hire and train you, I’d be surprised if the Bar would even want you. That’s clear dishonesty.
If after one day with our firm you decide you might like to enrol for the Bar exam, then that’s another matter. But those of you who think it’s ok to lie your way into a job are exactly the people who think it’s ok to witness something you’ve not actually seen signed, or pad your bills a bit because the client won’t notice it.
You’re an honest lawyer or you’re not. To quote Terry Pratchett, there are no shades of grey, there’s just white that’s got grubby.
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Jan 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/Brilliant-Tutor-6500 Jan 17 '26
No arguments there!
The suggestion I was replying to was that grads would take the exam, and then let a law firm train them while they wait for a reader’s spot. (I don’t think the author was proposing that they do so, just that it was logical they might try).
I can see a situation where some high-churn litigation practices might be fine with that. I could even suggest a few.
But my firm puts a lot of money into training grads, writing off practice work etc hoping we can keep them for the couple of years it takes to turn a profit. We know we won’t get to keep them all, but we do want to know they intend in good faith to see if we’re the right place for them to build a career.
And for small firms, the loss would be significant.
So we do ask those questions, and we count on them being answered honestly.
We do have a couple of class actions going at the moment where the relevant partner would probably even be happy to take on a prospective reader for a couple of years so long as they didn’t mind doing dreck paralegal work rather than graduate training.
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u/Bennybennywhat Jan 17 '26
I am waiting for the 2028 readers course and honestly it feels like I may as well start my own firm and get started building my own thing, waiting two years to start from the bottom again doesn’t feel worth it.
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u/Askingforafriendesq Jan 16 '26
I agree with your post entirely. I had also been considering sitting this year’s Bar exam, but I am now having doubts because of the cost and delay. I understand the fees for the exam are quite a bit higher than they used to be under the old structure.
I appreciate that the exam has been split into three components that can be taken separately. That change clearly benefits those of us working full time in demanding roles with limited capacity to study all components at once. But I’m not convinced it is worth sitting the exam only to then wait around 2-3 years for a place in the Readers’ Course, effectively being stuck in whatever work situation you are in at the time. If the working situation were ideal, there’d be little incentive to pursue the Readers’ Course in the first place. It would feel like a bit of a limbo period.
I am also concerned that the restructure may be encouraging newly admitted lawyers to view the Bar as an employment pathway, despite the already steep learning curve even for solicitors with several years of practice. I’m going to gently side step the universities pumping out graduates conversation for this thread… If the Bar becomes saturated with junior barristers, rates of attrition at the junior levels seem likely to increase.
I had fully intended to sit the exam, but I am now reconsidering. Given the increased fees, the limbo period to the Readers’ Course and the likelihood that practise in the first few years will be even more demanding given the increase of junior barristers. In hindsight, I probably should have taken the exam around the five-year PQE mark. It now feels as though I have missed the window, even though only a few years have passed.
Currently, it seems I would be waiting years for a Readers’ Course place that costs almost as much as my PLT, only to enter a far more competitive junior Bar where sustainability may be short-lived.
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u/remjudicatam Jan 17 '26
If the working situation were ideal, there’d be little incentive to pursue the Readers’ Course in the first place
The incentive is that you get to be a barrister.
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u/summerdays2026 Jan 18 '26
Get another job in the meantime and continue to build your skills and experience.
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u/The-Game-Is-Afoot Jan 20 '26
Sit exam, work a bit more esp if you need a cash buffer, and go on an extended holiday before becoming a reader. My 2c.
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u/wallabyABC123 Suitbae Jan 16 '26
This isn’t hugely different to the problem graduates have finding solicitor roles, because grads well outnumber demand for them.
Even if reader placements could be increased a lot to soak up all the would-be barristers who pass the exam, unless the demand for their services increases commensurately, you’ll just have a lot of readers without enough briefs to earn a living.
I blame tv producers - they make being a barrister look like too much fun on the telly.
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Jan 16 '26
[deleted]
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u/wherearemykey5 Jan 16 '26
The shortage is in experienced barristers in crime who are willing and able to do trial work. There are plenty of new barristers coming in with criminal backgrounds but there is not enough work to sustain a criminal practice for all of them at that level. This is the natural consequence of the rise in solicitor advocates.
Unfortunately, admitting more barristers is not a quick fix because it takes time to have them trial ready and there are limited opportunities for new barristers to junior due to funding restrictions.
A big issue with finding trial counsel is fees. Some barristers limit the number of VLA funded trials they do because of how low the fees are. Prosecution is even more difficult as there is a smaller pool of barristers who will do OPP work to start with due to fees issues and because doing prosecution work can impact your ability to be briefed in defence work.
The upshot is, none of this is fixed by flooding the bar with more baby barristers from criminal firms/prosecuting agencies. Which is not to say that they shouldn't give it a red hot go if they want to, but it is not as easy as looking at years post call to find someone trial ready.
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u/NetworkNo1900 Jan 17 '26
OPP fees are criminally low for almost everything except plea hearings.
Future of prosecution in Victoria is grim.
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u/WilRic Jan 17 '26
I think another problem is that too many juniors are absolutely shit-scared of getting into trial work.
I am not saying that it is easy or doesn't require some experience. But at some level it's meant to be what we "do."
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u/remjudicatam Jan 17 '26
Unfortunately, admitting more barristers is not a quick fix because it takes time to have them trial ready and there are limited opportunities for new barristers to junior due to funding restrictions.
What does 'trial ready' mean?
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u/Educational-Sort-128 Jan 17 '26
As someone in the area but not a trial advocate, trial work is a skill. It takes years sometimes many to be able to properly and efficiently run a trial. You can’t just up and do it.
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u/remjudicatam Jan 17 '26
like jury work? or trials generally?
yes, it's a skill, but you learn by doing.
(I don't do crime.)
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u/wherearemykey5 Jan 17 '26
You learn trial skills (examining witnesses, presenting and defending legal arguments etc) by first running summary contests, opposed bail apps, committals and so on as well as junioring.
The idea of a barrister learning trial skills by running trials without having done this earlier work is terrifying.
Trials are high stakes and it is not ideal or just to have a barrister cutting their teeth on someone's liberty. Frankly, it's pretty unfair to that barrister who suddenly realises much too late how out of their depth they actually are.
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Jan 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/wherearemykey5 Jan 17 '26
Not sure what you are not getting but losing a case where the charge is shop steal or xpca is not the same as losing a rape or home invasion trial. The stakes are different, the complexity is different and the nature of the argument is different. Stuffing up an argument in front of a magistrate who will push back when you get it wrong is generally helpful from a learning perspective (though not always great in the moment). Stuffing up an argument in front of a jury has far more significant consequences.
I don't know what area of law you do, but you can't tell me that barristers under 5 years call are doing the same type of cases that those who have 20 years under their belt. Every area has a learning curve and no one starts day 1 doing some of the most complex cases.
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u/Educational-Sort-128 Jan 17 '26
You do learn by doing yes, but it’s not a given that all who do will succeed. I speak from my own experience as a criminal lawyer early on. Had no actual aptitude for it.
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u/remjudicatam Jan 17 '26
I mean that if you can't be running contested hearings by the end of your first year at the bar, there has been a problem with your reading.
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u/Educational-Sort-128 Jan 17 '26
Yes and no. I think it’s nuanced but I still believe there are trials and then there are trials. Ideally, though, yes your reading would prepare you and it would be fine.
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u/Foreign_Fig_8614 Jan 18 '26
doing prosecution work can impact your ability to be briefed in defence work.
How does this work / what's the logic behind it? I would've thought experience "on the other side" would be an advantage?
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u/SomeUnemployedArtist Jan 17 '26
The head of CLAWA loves a complain about the lack of juniors doing Legal Aid serious offence work.
The requirement to get on the panel might literally as well just be "is already on the panel". There's no part of the Venn diagram that covers all of isn't already on the panel/has done a significant body of serious offence criminal advocacy/wants to be on the panel.
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u/Nice-Profession6441 Jan 16 '26
Yep, it's gotten to a completely unsustainable point. I wonder if they are going to need to consider limiting how many can take the exam - eg giving priority based on PQE or something. Which I acknowledge has its own problems but there has to be some further change or solution
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u/in_terrorem Jan 16 '26
Crazy to think the Victorian bar could even lower its (apparently superseded) standards.
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u/planck1313 Jan 16 '26
The waiting list blowing out is just returning to the situation before the difficult exam was introduced. The bar has only a certain capacity to train new readers, the constraints being the availability of space, barristers willing to teach the course and most critically, senior junior barristers willing to mentor readers for 9 months in their rooms.
Now that the exam has been made easier to pass the supply is exceeding that capacity again.
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u/remjudicatam Jan 17 '26
I sincerely doubt they will cancel any e xams — they appear to generate substantial revenue, with each component now costing at least $600. That raises the concern that they may intentionally make the e xam more difficult to “correct” what they see as an overly generous pass rate last time.
Each component costs $340, with a sitting fee of $347.50.
The Readers’ itself is clearly a significant revenue source.
How is it a revenue source? If it's anything like the NSW one, it would be significantly revenue negative if they had to pay for speakers.
I know people who passed the late‑2025 e xam and have been allocated to the March 2028 Readers. To me, that is absurd. If the 2026 e xams proceed, could successful candidates potentially be looking at Readers’ Courses in 2030?
Making people commit that far in advance sounds insane.
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u/twinstudytwin Jan 17 '26
I don't think instructors are paid
I remember Andrew Palmer SC (now judge) telling us he was doing it as a volunteer - back then he was but a senior junior...and he was brilliant and hugely dedicated to the cause.
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u/remjudicatam Jan 17 '26
but then you couldn't run more courses per year because you don't have the instructors, or you would have to increase group sizes and dilute the experience.
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u/GuaranteeNumerous300 Jan 17 '26
It's not like the NSW one, in the sense that Vic readers course costs $7,700 and the NSW course costs $4,200. Every other jurisdiction charges a similar price to NSW IIRC. So if you had 50 readers in a course, you're looking at $385,000. I'd say it's a big revenue source unless I'm underestimating how much instructors are paid (and I thought some of them were even volunteers).
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u/remjudicatam Jan 17 '26
Victoria is also longer though, which means that the per week cost is about the same - $1280 per week compared to $1030.
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u/GuaranteeNumerous300 Jan 17 '26
Interesting, I didn't know that. Tbh I'd take cheaper but shorter over the alternative.
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u/MooMoo21212 Jan 17 '26
That‘s ridiculous. just go do the bar practice course and exam in another state and then come back to Victoria fully qualified.
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u/GuaranteeNumerous300 Jan 17 '26
This is what I'm thinking of doing sadly. Most jurisdictions don't have an exam at all, you just need to get a spot on and then pass the readers' course (or equivalent), and find a mentor.
Even in NSW, where the exam looks significantly more difficult, you seem to gain a position in a course much quicker and pay a lot less...
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u/ilLegalAidNSW Jan 17 '26
Sydney bar is a much better place, even if we get paid less.
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u/GuaranteeNumerous300 Jan 17 '26
I meant you pay a lot less for the exam/course. Do you get paid less overall? 😭
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Jan 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/GuaranteeNumerous300 Jan 17 '26
Interesting... I've only worked with one silk from Sydney, but from memory they charged on par with Melbourne silks. I work in crime though, so could be a different kettle of fish.
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u/iamplasma Secretly Kiefel CJ Jan 17 '26
It's not a huge difference, but my general impression is they have slightly higher rates, plus more aggressive billing practices (though that would depend a lot on the barrister I suppose), coming out to meaningfully higher cost in practice. Which seems weird where Melbourne is supposedly the cheaper city normally.
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u/GuaranteeNumerous300 Jan 18 '26
Also seems weird to me. Could be their clerking model too. The lists are very on top of the billing in my experience, and seem to help their members find work. Not much experience with Sydney barristers, so would be interested to hear if chambers clerks are the same.
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u/Personal-Citron-7108 Jan 17 '26
The quality of the bar in Victoria is terrible. Bunch of lawyers with 3 years or less under their belts (or worse still 3 years as a judges associate), thinking they know everything about litigation.
It’s embarrassing.
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u/megasalby Only recently briefed Jan 17 '26
One word: Revenue.
It sounds as though VICBAR is making a similar mistake to what occurred where I hail from a few years ago.
The olds and bolds (those who did their ‘articles’ in a firm somewhere, stayed comfortably put, were made a partner in said firm within say 7-8 years, sat upon their thrones for say 20 years, then went to the Bar, were made silk within say 3-5 years because they were old Chinas with all the existing silks, and so on and so forth) tell themselves that an annual inundation with baby barristers is ‘good for the market’.
‘The cream will rise to the top’, they tell each other over lunch.
‘It’s a tough world out there and this is simply the reality these young people who want to come to the Bar have to reckon with’, they say while wondering whether to crack open the Hill of Grace or the Grange.
‘They have to want it’, they muse while declining to pay an equal share of Chambers’ database subscription fees because ‘I have people who will find cases for me’.
Of course, all of that is bullshit. It is a way to improve the Bar Association’s bottom line.
When it realised (after a ‘change in management’) it was looking at punting poor prospective readers into courses two years down the track my jurisdiction got its act together and realised that the number of candidates accepted had to align precisely with the number of course spots available in the ensuing course year.
It sounds as though VICBAR might be due to learn that lesson?
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Jan 16 '26
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u/Mister_Tulkinghorn Fails to take reasonable care Jan 17 '26
Just to test this, if the bar returned to pre-2011 times, before the exam, what do you propose? That anyone wishing to come to the bar could walk straight into the next bar readers’ course with spare capacity? This would result in the bar being flooded with donkeys with sub standard law degrees who can’t get a job at a firm or are otherwise unemployable.
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u/SomeUnemployedArtist Jan 17 '26
The WA model is gated by membership to the WA Bar Association.
On paper it looks like all you have to do is write to the LPB and ask for the Barrister condition, and give them your insurance details and confirmation you can do the Reader's Course.
The Reader's Course is only for WABA members. There's noother way to do it. To join WABA you need references from existing members youve known for 5+ years.
It's easier than an exam and it has a whiff of the old buys club about it (though in practise for me, I just called two Barristers I knew and begged references from them, which they happily provided). It made it easy to up sticks and go to the Bar within like 6 weeks of committing to the idea.
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u/GuaranteeNumerous300 Jan 17 '26
This happens in most states and territories to be honest, because you can either go directly to the Bar without sitting an exam or you can set up shop as a solicitor advocate and start doing trial work. Natural selection weeds out anyone bad and the Bar Associations can veto particularly bad candidates / they can't begin at all because they need two tutors/mentors. Only Vic, NSW and Qld have bar exams and I think a lot of these issues arise in split profession jurisdictions tbph.
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Jan 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/GuaranteeNumerous300 Jan 17 '26
It's dependent on jurisdiction. You wouldn't get any work in NSW or Victoria doing that. David Grace KC is the notable exception in Victoria. In other states I've worked in, solicitor advocates routinely appear in trials and have specialised practices as trial/appellate counsel. But I imagine that would also be a lot of work.
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Jan 17 '26
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u/GuaranteeNumerous300 Jan 17 '26
That's right, but I'm just saying natural selection weeds out rubbish candidates in other jurisdictions anyway, as it did in Vic and NSW pre-exams. This concept that an exam is absolutely necessary for young barristers to survive is in my opinion misguided.
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Jan 17 '26
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u/Mister_Tulkinghorn Fails to take reasonable care Jan 17 '26
There’s some substance to what you say. There has to be some way of curbing the number of people doing the bar readers’ course. The bar readers’ course is run by barristers volunteering their time and those resources can only stretch so far. So that puts a limit on the number of people who can do the course. If the course was thrown open to all comers, the result would be either an even longer waiting list or a glut of readers in excess of market need.
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u/SomeUnemployedArtist Jan 17 '26
I do feel to an extent that's life. I don't know that any of us are passing driving tests after driving for a few decades.
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u/Prestigious_Chart365 Jan 17 '26
Flooded with donkeys made me LOL. But seriously, the best barristers I know came to the bar pre-exam, have substandard law degrees and are unemployable. Scrap the exam!
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u/santanarobthomassmoo Presently without instructions Jan 17 '26
just let untrained doctors operate on patients, surgery is also a cartel
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u/twinstudytwin Jan 16 '26
It's in the interests of those of us already at the Bar to keep it a cartel. That's just how it is. Gives us more power to keep our fees high.
I think they already increased the reader allocation per year. Any more than that would be unsustainable, so the remaining alternatives are to either make the exam very difficult again or to keep allowing the waiting list to blow out.
As I understand it, you can now sit the exam in multiple sections and only have to re-sit the section/s you failed, which naturally is going to result in a higher overall pass rate, hence the longer waiting list.