Orlagh Kelly: Welcome to today's Get Briefed podcast. I'm absolutely delighted to have Mass Ndow-Njie with us — a barrister, social entrepreneur, and public speaker. We're really excited to hear all about your story, Mass. Called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2019 and the Bar of Gambia in 2024. You're currently practising out of 7BR Chambers — is that right? Fantastic. Well, thanks for spending some time with us today.

Mass Ndow-Njie: That's correct. Thank you for having me. I'm really delighted to be here. I'm looking forward to this conversation with you.

Orlagh Kelly: Brilliant. So let's jump right in. You've been called about five years. You're probably at the younger end of our guests. So I'm really interested to understand the bar from your perspective — and to hear about Bridging the Bar, of which you're founder and chairperson, a wonderful charity that we're personally involved with as well. So let's start at the start. How did you decide to become a barrister?

Mass Ndow-Njie: Sure. So I have my sister to thank for my interest in the law. My sister always loves to remind me that she's five or six years older than me, depending on where we are in the year. And as a result, when I went into year seven — into secondary school for the first time — she was also transitioning into the sixth form for the first time. At that time, she had picked law as one of her sixth form subjects. And it meant that she was coming back with all of these new, different types of homework, all these problem questions, essay questions. And I used to always try to glance at her homework and try to figure out the answer and try to help her with her homework, which she'd just tell me to get out of her room. But what it meant was it sort of sparked an interest for me. I used to get everything wrong, but it sparked an interest in the law for me.

And not to the extent where I decided I wanted to work in the law or anything, but just more like, this is more interesting than the subjects I'm doing at the moment, if you know what I mean. And so what I said to myself was that when I got to year 12, that was going to be one of the subjects I'd pick. So that's basically what happened. I got to year 12, I picked law as one of my sixth form subjects. I actually began with a number of different subjects and didn't end up with any of the ones I started with except law.

So yeah, it wasn't at any point — at that point, at least — a decision about a career in the profession. It was just a spark of interest. So that's how it started.

Orlagh Kelly: Okay, and so what happened then after your A levels?

Mass Ndow-Njie: So after my A levels — well, actually, during my A levels. So when I got to year 12, one of the things which my school did for that year, for the first time ever, was to enter into this competition, which I think you're familiar with, which is the National Bar Mock Trial Competition. And effectively what it is is a mooting competition. It was held in real courts with real judges and you're basically pitched against a number of different schools. So in effect, there'd be advocates from one school, cross-examining witnesses from another school who were obviously trying to make life difficult for them. And then there would be jury members made up of a completely separate school. Our school had entered into this competition and I'd been fortunate enough to be selected as one of the barristers for the school. And so I left this experience really having my first real insight into what the law might look like in practice. I enjoyed it a lot. And what was really good about the whole process was that beforehand, a barrister had come into our school and sort of helped us to prepare — did a couple of sessions talking us through what the law looks like in practice, basically. And yeah, coming back after that experience, for me, it just felt like it didn't feel like work. You know, by the time you get through GCSEs and you're into sixth form, I think a lot of people will maybe relate to the fact that you're all trying to figure out how to get a job which doesn't feel like working. And to me, it felt like an enjoyable experience. And so that's kind of when I got my sights set on a career at the bar. That was where the drive came for the focus to the bar, at least.

Orlagh Kelly: That's very interesting to me, because yes, I also played the part of a barrister for the National Bar Mock Trial. I think that's run by Young Citizens Foundation. Obviously it's been going for quite some time because I participated in 1997 when I was doing my A levels. You're significantly later than that, but it's obviously going from strength to strength. I'd love to understand how many people who've participated in that actually went on to be legally qualified, because I found it — it was in April before we started, I was literally doing my French oral about three weeks later, on the cusp of doing our A levels — I probably didn't necessarily — my other teachers weren't particularly happy about the fact that we were focusing on that. It was quite a lot of work. But it was really a brilliant experience. And although I'd already applied for law at that stage and I'd known for quite some time that I'd wanted to do law, it really cemented the idea for me that I wanted to be a court-based lawyer.

And that was such a fantastic experience. And it's just so interesting that you had that same vibe, I guess, as well. And so did you choose law and live happily ever after? Or did you have a pathway to where you are now?

Mass Ndow-Njie: It wasn't quite happily ever after. I think there were a number of hiccups along the way. So effectively, I'd come back from that competition, as I said, thinking and feeling like this could be the job for me. And so started to do all of the research around what it means to become a barrister, what you need to do, trying to get as much advice as I could. I grew up in a town called Crawley — the way you explain it, if you're from Crawley, because no one's heard of it, is to say it's just 10 minutes away from Gatwick Airport. But there aren't any barristers' chambers in the area. I didn't know any barristers. And so there was a limited pool of advice I could pull on. And effectively, the advice I was getting from the research I was doing was indicating to me that if I wanted to become a barrister, I needed to go to either Oxford or Cambridge University. And that was really going to be where my best chances lay. And so, you know, being in year 12, there was still time to try and get the best grades possible to give myself that opportunity. And so I worked really hard. I got the A's I needed to apply and I applied at the beginning of year 13 to Mansfield College in Oxford. A few months later — really excited. It felt like, okay, I've got the grades now, that's step one, applied. A few months later, I get invited for an interview. That's the next step. And I started to feel like I was building some momentum — enjoyed and really fell in love with the city of Oxford and the university during the weekend that you go there for the interviews. And then a few months later, when you've applied to one of those institutions, you know what day you're going to get the result. It's going to come in the post in a letter. That letter comes and it basically reads: unfortunately, we will not be able to offer you a place.

And so for me in that moment — because I had associated going to Oxford with being the route to becoming a barrister — it meant that I couldn't become a barrister. At least that's what I thought in that moment. And so it's interesting because I think when I've previously told my story, a lot of people have interpreted it as being one of perseverance. But actually, when I reflect and look back on it, I gave up in that moment. And it wasn't a story of perseverance. There was some fortune along the way. But in that moment, I'd completely given up on the idea of becoming a barrister and felt that I needed to open my mind to other opportunities. In the short term, the way I reacted was — well, firstly, my school very rarely sends an applicant to Oxford or Cambridge. And so they had requested feedback. I was the only applicant in my year group and there might be an applicant every few years or so. And in the feedback, what it suggested was that I was a near miss and effectively could reapply. And so in my mind I thought, okay, well, if I do want to do this, I need to probably reapply. And so I'd rejected and declined all of the other offers I got for university and decided in my mind that's what I was going to do. Now, everyone around me — this was against the advice of everyone around me. Family, teachers were saying, go to university. You can go to a really good institution and still study law and still have a great experience. But I was quite set in that moment.

And a few months later — maybe just a couple of months later, if I'm thinking of the timelines — I was called into my law teacher's office. And what he said to me was that he had effectively been contacting different universities, explaining my situation. And he explained to me there's this thing called UCAS Extra, which is similar to clearing. Which happens at the end of the year, obviously, if you don't have any offers or you don't make your offer, you can apply to different universities. But with Extra, it operates throughout the academic year. And effectively, if you don't receive any offers or you decline all your offers, you can apply to one university at a time. The trouble with Extra is that a lot of the top institutions don't take any places in Extra because they fill up all of their places through their ordinary processes.

But basically what he'd done is he'd been emailing some of those institutions saying, here's a candidate, here's the situation, would you make an exception? He says to me, there's this university called Queen Mary University of London. He sells it to me a little bit. I think that year the Guardian had them ranked highly for law and he was showing me all of the different rankings. And he says, they don't usually go into Extra, but they said they'll make an exception for you. They'll open it up for 15 minutes on the portal. You put an application in and they're going to accept it. You should answer your phone — in a second. It'll be mum and dad. Are you going to go? So everyone's in on this but me. And to be honest —

Orlagh Kelly: Shout out to your teacher — what's his name?

Mass Ndow-Njie: Mr Maine, shout out to Mr Maine — yeah, an amazing teacher. He taught for over 40 years. He's retired now, but I am still in touch with him — definitely someone who's had a huge impact on my life. And so yeah, there was all of this encouragement to go. To be honest, in that moment I didn't want to go, but I felt that there were so many people doing so much to encourage me — people that I respected, in particular Mr Maine, but of course my family as well. Going to so much trouble for me. I didn't feel like I should take that for granted. And obviously being young, I think part of me also recognised that I'm young and they have the benefit of experience and maybe there's something they're thinking about that I'm currently missing. And so yeah, I ended up taking the offer to Queen Mary and I got off to Queen Mary.

The context is important though, because when I get to Queen Mary I've still — you know, I can't be a barrister, now I've gone to Queen Mary.

Orlagh Kelly: That's still in your mind? That barrier, the view is still there in your mind, isn't it? That's interesting. You'd formed that view at 16 or 17 and nothing was really shaking that for you.

Mass Ndow-Njie: Yeah, I mean, I think maybe somewhere in the real back of my mind — which I wouldn't have vocalised because I didn't know I probably could — maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I thought, okay, if you go and get a first, then maybe you can go and do a master's at one of those institutions. Maybe that'll be your route in. But, you know, part of that thing we all do, right, where you kind of set expectations low, you kind of keep your dreams to yourself, do you know what I mean? So it was in the back of my mind, but it wouldn't go any further than that. And I think as a result, I wasn't able to take any active steps which would have helped me if I wanted to still pursue a career at the bar.

Orlagh Kelly: So example, mini-pupillages or things like that. You didn't do that. Okay.

Mass Ndow-Njie: I didn't do that. Exactly. I didn't apply for any mini-pupillages. I didn't join any of the law societies, the bar societies. Sometimes uni would put out an essay competition or something. I didn't do any of that. And I basically used university as a period to explore — you know, what do I enjoy? And that meant trying a bit of everything, basically.

In practice, what that looked like was some football coaching. I've always played football. So I got my coaching badges. During the holidays, I would work at Crawley Town Football Club, which is obviously my hometown, the team I played for as well in the past. And then I also got a job during term time at West Ham Football Club, Queen Mary being in East London, so it was quite convenient. And so, yeah, a lot of coaching — which would really confuse everyone in my course. Like they'd be like, what are you going to do with the summer? And they'd talk about their internships that they'd got lined up. And I was like, I'm going to do some more coaching.

And I explored business — I entered into this Dragons' Den type of competition and won some money from Santander. I think it was called a Start It or Grow It award, to sort of try out a business idea. And the one which did feature prominently afterwards was trading the financial markets, and I got myself onto some courses and started to learn. And later on, I'll come on to that in a bit, but that did have some more prominence after uni.

And yeah, in terms of what someone might describe as more formal work experience, I applied for a random internship because I thought I should — peer pressure basically got to me with everyone telling me what they're doing with their summers. And on one summer, I spent it at a company called Grant Thornton, which is effectively a large accounting and professional services firm. I was in the business consulting team, and also worked with some public sector audit work. And so, again, nothing legal related at all. And at the end of that internship, I ended up getting a graduate job offer. And I accepted the graduate job offer.

What do you do? And yeah, so post university, I'd gone into this role at Grant Thornton. Very quickly I felt and realised that this is not how I wanted to spend my life. Shortly after that, I ended up being offered a role on a trading floor. I had still been trading on the side. When I left, I was just trading myself and then ended up getting this opportunity to work for a global company.

And then, yeah, so one year post graduation — I'm getting back to the story. So it's a really long story. So yeah, one year post graduation, I'm on this trading floor. My old sixth form law teacher contacts me and basically asks the question: are you practising as a barrister?

Orlagh Kelly: Is this Mr Maine?

Mass Ndow-Njie: This is Mr Maine. And effectively — so actually, you know, I should explain that he knew exactly what I was doing because he'd been my reference for everything that I'd done from the point I left sixth form. That was Mr Maine's way of saying, hurry up and get back to the bar. And I effectively responded to him explaining the reasons why I never pursued a career at the bar. And his response was words to the effect of: I know somebody who has recently secured pupillage at the Government Legal Department. Even though all of the experiences you've gained since leaving have been non-legal, I still think they'll value those experiences. Put an application in, Mass.

The way I always describe Mr Maine is he felt like a sort of uncle figure — that's the way I'd put it. And then in my culture, you know, there is a real emphasis on respecting your elders. Yeah, I mean, you listen to what your uncle, your auntie, your mum, your dad tell you. And I think I put an application in really to be able to turn around and say to him, I tried — because I had so much respect for him. Not because I believed there was any prospect I would get it. And not because I was even sure that I wanted it anymore, because I was in a completely different place. I wasn't unhappy with the trading I was doing. And then, you know, I remember — I was just getting through the process — and, you know, the next step: I'd got back from a friend's 21st birthday trip, we'd all gone abroad. And I got back, and literally as I landed at Gatwick Airport, I saw that I'd been invited to the final stage. And then I did the final stage, went off to Gambia with my family for a huge trip — which is where I'm from. And then while I was out in Gambia — well, firstly, the day they were supposed to make the offers, my WiFi was so terrible that I never received any communications. No emails at all. And then the next day I suddenly got a surge of messages. And the first message wasn't obvious, but I had been made this offer of pupillage. Then there were all of these follow-ups — like they think I've been ignoring them basically and not sure if I want the pupillage. And yeah, it was a really confusing moment, actually, for me. I think when most people think about the moment when they get offered pupillage, it's this euphoric moment. They've been working towards it for such a long time. For me, I hadn't even told anyone I'd applied — apart from Mr Maine. So all of a sudden I'm saying to my family, okay, I've just got this offer. What do I do? And obviously I chose to pursue that old dream of mine. And I'm so glad I did. So that's kind of the journey to the bar. It meant all of a sudden trying to change my life around — leaving this trading floor, having to go back to law school to actually do the bar because I hadn't done the bar. And then only after that to then start pupillage. So there was a sort of two-year lead time — I was basically recruited two years in advance so I could facilitate doing all of that. But yeah, it's a bit of a long-winded, weird journey.

Orlagh Kelly: What I'm thinking of is this person who, as luck would have it, has gone through a journey from — you did a law degree ultimately, but really only because someone kind of made you do it. And you're kind of like the footballing, entrepreneurial, social justice campaigner — a barrister by accident. Would that be fair?

Mass Ndow-Njie: I've never had anyone put it that way, but that makes sense. I think that's the best description. By accident. Well, by accident, but you know — by accident.

Orlagh Kelly: It was interesting to me when you said people, on the first blush, go, oh, here's a story about perseverance, and here's a story about someone who didn't fit the typical mould and made it anyway because they tried and they persevered. And actually you're like, that's not really my story. And that's interesting. I can reflect on it a bit personally. Once I was doing my law degree, I wanted to go to the bar. But it's typically very, very difficult to get into in Northern Ireland. And I remember — it's roughly, there are maybe about 20 places at the bar and I think maybe 90 places for solicitors, and it's all in the one — it's called the Institute of Professional Legal Studies here. So where you have a lot of bar schools where people can go and do their bar, and then the competition starts when you're applying for a pupillage, in Northern Ireland actually the competition starts when you try to get in to do your professional exams. And the pupillages and training contracts that come thereafter are not as difficult to come by, but it's very difficult to get in to do your professional exams essentially — which works quite well, because it means not lots of people aren't growing lots of debt to do a qualification where they can never actually move forward. So I think it works quite well. But I remember the first time that I did it, I didn't get onto the list — and I'd made plans with a friend to travel to Australia for a year. And I was really all keen on that. I was 21.

And on the last day before the window closed, I got a phone call to say, the list has moved and you've gotten in — you've got an offer to be a solicitor. And I just said, okay, thanks. No, I'm not going to take it. I'm going to Australia. I didn't even ask my mum or dad what I should do. I just went. I had decided I was going to Australia. And I guess on reflection it worked out, because in the next year I got into the bar class, which is really where I wanted to go. And I don't know if I would have been brave enough to leave the solicitor profession and become self-employed had I gone that route. But that kind of place where, in your teenage head, you were making decisions based on quite basic assumptions and thoughts — that just struck me that I had done that too, way back when I said no. And I remember hearing the gasp of shock from the person on the other end of the phone, because obviously there were a lot of other people who were working very hard to get these places and were really hoping to get them. And I was just like, no, it's okay. I'll not bother taking it. I don't even know if I actually told my mum and dad — they might just find out if they listen to the podcast. Yeah. And so I love your story. Thinking about the word resilience, I did have to have some of that when I went to the bar because it's very difficult to get a practice off the ground in Northern Ireland. We don't have a clerking system and there is a lot of messaging around, you won't make it at the bar. Everybody gets that once they start — you'll not make it, you'll not make it. And that's really around getting a practice off the ground and a business off the ground, rather than not being able to be a good advocate. So I guess that's where I had to bring in the resilience piece. I'm sure you've had to do that since.

Mass Ndow-Njie: Yeah, I mean, when I look at my own story, I don't see it as being one of huge commitment to achieving this goal. But I think one lesson which I do take, when I look back, is that I probably did to an extent show resilience — in a different way. Because I think it was fine for me not to know what I was going to do. But what I didn't do at any moment was stand still. And so I was always trying to get a different type of experience. And even at the very least, it would be to say, let me try that. That's not for me. Let me try that. I do like this part of that, but not quite — not the full picture. And I think in the modern day, ultimately transferable skills are everything. And if you can build transferable skills via a number of different types of opportunities, then that's half of the job. And so what it meant was when I was going for interviews — for example, for the Government Legal Department pupillage — I couldn't talk about experiences such as, you know, I did this mooting competition, in order to demonstrate oral advocacy. But I would need to demonstrate the same skills and the same potential, but just via different stories.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah. I mean, I certainly think there's a lot to be said for diversity of experience that essentially allows people to build skills that they will use. Because law and different legal topics are things that can be learned. And typically, a lot of the skills that you learn in law school are how to research something and how to absorb it and interpret it. That can always be done. It's the core skills beneath and behind that. And I think particularly around communication — I had a great chat with James Pereira KC on the podcast a while ago, and he talks about how on the career pathway and academic journey that barristers and lawyers are on, there isn't a lot of support around — I hate to call them soft skills, because it makes them feel fluffy and not really required. But given that for a lot of people there's a significant amount of communication required with all different types of people who all communicate differently, that's a key skill that really should be emphasised and it's not addressed whatsoever. So the fact that anyone can go out and get lots of experience in areas with different people, I think works well. I worked in a shop from I was kind of 15 to 19 and that was a fantastic way just to be able to communicate with people — it's very basic, but I find that all of that stood me in good stead. And I certainly know from having spoken to heads of chambers relatively recently that there is more of a difficulty with new generation barristers coming in who are super smart and super qualified and super experienced at all of the different things that are out there. But their ability to communicate in a magistrates' court with someone who's being charged with drunk driving or something like that — they haven't got those skills. They spent all of their time filling out their CV and not a lot of it getting core experience around communication. And that's something that's making their lives and their ability to succeed much more difficult. It's nothing to do with their grades or their university.

So I think there's a lot to be said for the value that people who come into the profession bring who haven't just gone that very direct pathway — regardless of what universities they've gone to — in terms of understanding the diversity of experience. And so you're at the bar, you're working out of 7BR, and you have founded this wonderful charity, Bridging the Bar. Can you tell us a bit about that? And why?

Mass Ndow-Njie: Yes. Happy to. Bridging the Bar has my heart. It's a charity which I set up and ultimately it aims to support people, aspiring barristers from statistically underrepresented groups. Our ultimate aim is for there to be equal access to opportunities in this profession. The main way we do that at the moment is through the Bridging the Bar Academy. And that is an academy which has 100 candidates every single year — they have a real, full curriculum. They all get, firstly, unconscious bias training and some other training from Briefed.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, thank you. Very happy to support the cause. I have to say, yeah, it's great.

Mass Ndow-Njie: We really appreciate it and it's been well received from our candidates. It's been well received from members of the committee and staff who have also taken part. So we really enjoy the collaboration. Thank you for that. As well as that sort of training, there are a number of different things that they'll get throughout the academic year. Firstly, every single person on the academy will get a number of work experience opportunities. So that includes mini-pupillages, but also paid internships at places like the UK Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court, the Law Commission, and Advocate, the bar's pro bono charity. They also get a number of different training sessions — similar to the sort of training that you provide, but also others which will assist them on their journey to the bar, hopefully. So things like advocacy training — a lot of it is particularly geared to the type of training and exercises you might receive during pupillage interviews. They will receive a mentor, application support — you know, there's going to be loads of stuff I'm not even going to remember right now, but effectively a four-year curriculum. And the idea is to really help those aspiring barristers to be able to get over the line.

Orlagh Kelly: How did you come up with this idea or concept?

Mass Ndow-Njie: The idea concept came — so I'm going to take you into another long story.

Orlagh Kelly: That's okay, we've got time.

Mass Ndow-Njie: Okay. So when I was called to the bar, I did this post on my socials. You know, picture of yourself in the wig and gown — I think everyone does that after you've been called to the bar. I had the caption: you don't have to have gone to Oxbridge. You don't have to have a first class degree. You don't have to look a certain way or be a certain colour. You don't have to talk with a specific accent or come from a wealthy family — rounded off by saying, the above isn't me, but I am a barrister. And basically I posted it on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter.

The next day, it's got like millions of views on Twitter, LinkedIn, thousands of likes, hundreds of comments. And I was like, so confused. But I think quite positively, different parts of that post were speaking to different people in different situations. And I never necessarily realised it at the time I posted it, but I think it had a positive effect on a lot of people. And as a consequence of that, there were a lot of journalists reaching out and asking me to do interviews, or different institutions, private organisations, universities asking me to speak to their audiences. And I started to do a lot more public speaking and public writing on the topic of diversifying the legal profession. At this time, I was already on the organising committee of another charity called Urban Lawyers, which is headed up by another barrister called Dr Tunde Okewale OBE, and he practises out of Doughty Street Chambers. And then, so fast forward a few months, I start a pupillage. So I got called to the bar in July, start a pupillage in September. And I think in November, there was a particular moment where I had this week — I'd just done a talk at Middle Temple. I'd done another one at the Ministry of Justice that week.

Orlagh Kelly: What were these talks on? What were you being asked to speak about? Diversity?

Mass Ndow-Njie: Yeah, diversity, exactly. Diversity in the legal profession. What can we do? What should we be doing? Talking about different stories. And I remember I got this — Professor Jo Delahunty KC, another barrister who practises out of 4PB, 4 Paper Buildings, tagged me in a post. And it was effectively — she was saying, here's a list of my stars at the bar. And it wasn't just individuals, it was also organisations — organisations like 100 Years of Women in the Law. And then some individuals: people who have been role models to me, people like Professor Leslie Thomas KC. And there was my name at the end of this post. And I just remember thinking, has she not accidentally added me? I had no idea that she even knew who I was. I didn't think there was any reason for her to know who I was, to be honest. But obviously I felt really humbled for her to have included me in that post. And I pinged back a response along the lines of, you know, thank you — I'm not sure I'm deserving to be on that list.

And she pinged back another response. And there were two parts of a response — and I may not get the words exact, but effectively two parts of the response which resonated. One was her saying something to the effect of, you're doing great work — and, tell me what more I can do to help. We need to do more than just talk. Tell me what more I can do to help. For me, it was really encouraging to see somebody in her position — a silk, a leader in her field. She's also a judge. She's been given the Freedom of the City of London. She's a professor at Gresham College. As you can see, I'm a bit of a fan boy. Someone in her position to be offering her support to someone like me — a pupil who's literally two or three months into pupillage. I thought to myself, I shouldn't take that for granted. Similarly to the period before when I told you I shouldn't take for granted the support I was given by my parents, my sixth form law teacher.

And the other part — we need to do more than just talk. I always say this, I think I took that a bit personally, but not in an offensive way — more as a moment of realisation. Yeah, I was sitting on this board for Urban Lawyers, which I should say is focused on the legal profession more widely, so not just the bar. But I did feel that there was maybe more I could do. I was doing a lot of talking, basically — as I said, that week I'd just done a couple of talks. And I was asking myself, what more can I do to really move the dial at the bar? And so what it did was it sent me into this — I don't know how to describe it — a bit of a rabbit hole where I was sort of saying to myself, okay, I'm not going to ignore this woman, but what I am going to do is go away and think about something concrete that I can and want to do. And then I'm going to come back to her and take her up on her offer of support. And so I just — kind of, not literally, but locked myself in a room basically for a period and was racking my brain for different ideas of what can be done at the bar, more than what was already being done by different people. And came up with a hundred bad ideas and then one which I thought might be a good one. And that idea ended up being Bridging the Bar. And I did end up contacting her again and asking her if she'd be one of Bridging the Bar's champions — effectively a sort of high-level ambassador. We had a really junior team once that team was formalised. But to have some senior support in the profession would go a long way. And of course she said yes, and she's still a champion to this day. So yeah, at the beginning, the idea for Bridging the Bar was really simple. If pupillages are often going to the same groups, or at least there are a number of groups which seem to be being excluded — based on the statistics — from getting these pupillage opportunities, let's look at the step below, which is mini-pupillages, and let's see if we can create a mini-pupillage scheme for people from these underrepresented groups. The idea is by getting them in the door, that will hopefully help them make that next step. They can build some relationships, they can look at and understand what it looks like in practice, and then be better placed to apply for pupillages. We had this Plan A, which was to get a load of chambers signed up to this mini-pupillage scheme. Plan B — because I think we weren't confident that anyone would sign up, to be honest — Plan B was to hope that we could get a number of individual barristers to offer places, given that individual barristers are self-employed and could do so effectively using their own prerogative. Fortunately, by the time we'd launched, I think there were 30 chambers signed up. And so we didn't have to go to Plan B. By the next year, there were maybe more than 70 signed up. And so it really did begin to kick off. We were able to bring in some sponsors, which then allowed us to become more expansive and then to start to grow our schemes and do a number of different schemes, which has ultimately led to Bridging the Bar coming to where it is today.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, and it has had wonderful success. So I'm going to put you on the spot here. I've seen the stats, but I'm really going to put you on the spot — tell us, for example, out of the cohort of pupillages. I don't know if you've got your statistics for this year so far, but for the last one that you've been able to compile, can you tell us a little bit about how your 100 candidates have done?

Mass Ndow-Njie: Yes, now you are testing me on the statistics. I haven't had a look at it very recently. We haven't got the latest ones, but I think we did see a number of positive stories. In the last year, I think every single person who had a place on the Bridging the Bar Academy saw their chances of securing pupillage increase by over 2.32 times — at a minimum to 3.12 times. After this, we're going to have to check that and see if I was close. But effectively, by being on the Bridging the Bar Academy, you have your chances of getting pupillage increased by two to three times. Yeah, exactly. And you know, to talk to you a little bit about the idea of the Academy and where that came from — effectively, before we had a number of disparate schemes. So there was the mini-pupillage programme, and we had a number of chambers signed up to it and offered a number of mini-pupillages. Then we had a mentorship programme and we had, you know, a number of advocacy workshops, and there were a load of different ways Bridging the Bar was supporting a significant number of candidates. But each different scheme had its own application process, which could obviously be quite, you know — it can lead to application fatigue, particularly if you're not being successful in them. They are still competitive programmes among the groups that we support. You do need to put in some time and effort into these applications.

Orlagh Kelly: Just on that point, do you know, for example, how many people in any given year apply for the 100 places? Do you have any numbers around that?

Mass Ndow-Njie: I don't have that myself. Someone has that.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, we'll find out that information about it later.

Mass Ndow-Njie: No, and it's a good opportunity to just flag this — there is an amazing team behind the scenes. Originally, as I said, an executive committee made up of a number which were aspiring barristers, some were junior barristers at the very beginning of their career, some were pupils. And you know, that team has grown and more and more of them have got pupillage and have become barristers. But now we're at a stage where we also are supported by a number of staff who — sometimes I just look at things I've put on my desk and I'm just like, these people are amazing. The way they're sort of running this ship and having everything go the way it does. And of course we've got a number of different partners — I've spoken to you about the different people we work with and that includes yourself. So it really isn't one person or two people doing it. It's the combination of everyone coming together. So yeah, someone has those numbers. I just don't know them.

Orlagh Kelly: We'll get them, we'll get them. It is phenomenally successful. I remember looking at the statistics that came through and thinking, what a difference you and your team are making — really essentially not just talking, but actually diversifying the bar. You should be very proud.

Mass Ndow-Njie: I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. It is a huge source of pride. There's not many better feelings than that moment when someone says, I just got pupillage and I couldn't have done it without Bridging the Bar. But yeah, I realised I didn't even finish what I was trying to explain. So we had a number of disparate schemes. And then what we realised is that there were a number of candidates, for example, who were successful in getting onto a number of different programmes. So for example, they might have got on a mini-pupillage scheme, a mentoring scheme, and an advocacy workshop. And a good example of that were those who were in our first intake of Supreme Court interns.

A number of them — as I said — had been on a number of different schemes. And amongst that group, I think by the end of the year, seven or eight of them had all secured pupillage — and I think that might be up to eight out of eight now. Obviously for some people it takes slightly longer. And something in the region of 28 pupillage offers between them — I think one person got seven or eight offers. And so I think the way we looked at it was: whilst our schemes in isolation may have been providing assistance to a number of different candidates and helping them to improve and get closer, where our schemes came together, it was moving the dial a lot more. And so just to use a really basic analogy — we might have been taking candidates from a seven to an eight by being on one scheme, when the pass mark for an offer of pupillage was nine. Whereas when people were on a number of schemes, it would take them from a seven to a ten, and they weren't getting one offer, they were getting multiple offers. So the idea of the Academy was to basically replicate that on a larger scale so that candidates can hopefully improve across lots of areas.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, that's amazing. It seems to be a great strategy for success, definitely. And what does the future hold for Bridging the Bar and for Mass?

Mass Ndow-Njie: The future for Bridging the Bar — and for Mass. For Bridging the Bar, hopefully the future — I think for any organisation like this — is that the organisation becomes redundant, and we all have to say that's the aspiration. That the numbers continue in the same way, that we do see more people from underrepresented groups finding access to this profession. And basically the outcome to be: there is equal access to opportunities in this profession. That's the aspiration, really.

I think obviously there's still a lot of work to do. I think potentially Bridging the Bar can in the future do more to influence some of the more important and bigger conversations around access — the things that seem to be on the periphery. So it's easy to talk about this in general terms, but then to look more at specific issues. So for example, physical access to buildings and how that might impact on candidates who want to come to the bar and might be a wheelchair user, for example. So that's a place I think we can add some value. Not just directly to the candidates that we support, but also to the profession more widely.

For Mass — to be continued.

Orlagh Kelly: Which other thing are we going to add to footballing, trading, social entrepreneur, barrister? There's a lot more that can go on there by the sound of it.

Mass Ndow-Njie: Yeah, I mean, previously, I think there was a period where I was very focused. These are my goals. This is what I have to achieve. And I think maybe over the last year and a half or a couple of years, I've been a bit more floating, you know, sort of — some days not setting an alarm. But yeah, I've been a bit more open to different opportunities, open to what comes next. And so yeah, at the moment I'm very open minded.

Orlagh Kelly: Brilliant. Well, I'm sure a lot of good things. I mean, if this is you and what you can achieve when you're floating, I can't even imagine once you decide that you've set your mind on something else — something new — how quickly you'll get there. It's been wonderful to talk to you. We've had some great stories. We better close it down for this and save some possibly for the next time that we get you on the show. Thank you very much. I really love talking to you. I love what you do. And if there are any other ways that we can support, we'd be absolutely delighted to do so.

Mass Ndow-Njie: Amazing. Thank you very much. It's been a real pleasure. I really enjoyed myself.