Simeon Burke, a brother of jailed teacher Enoch Burke, faces putting his Irish Bar career on hold after failing to get an established barrister to take him on as a pupil in the coming legal year.
Newly qualified barristers had to obtain a ‘master’ from a list of about 150 established barristers available to take on pupils to work unpaid for a year by 5pm on Monday. Obtaining a master is a mandatory requirement for self-employed barristers who wish to be members of the Law Library and practice in courts here.
According to the Bar Council, the “first and foremost” responsibility to secure a master rests on the pupil.
His lack of a master means Mr Burke is not among some 80 newly qualified barristers invited to an orientation day on Tuesday at the Law Library’s Distillery building on Dublin’s Church Street.
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It also means he may be unable to embark on his apprenticeship until the start of the next legal year in October of next year, and then only if he gets a master in the interim.
Mr Burke studied law at the University of Galway, Cambridge University and the King’s Inns. An award-winning student, he was called by the Chief Justice to the Bar at a ceremony in the Supreme Court last October.
In a social media broadcast from outside the Distillery building on Monday afternoon, Mr Burke claimed he was facing “imminent exclusion” from practising law in the Irish courts due to his “religious beliefs”.
He said he had, over the past five years, interned with a barrister on the western Circuit here, worked as a judicial intern with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, as a policy intern for a disability rights organisation and as an Iveagh Fellow. He said he has always had “an excellent working relationship with his employers and work colleagues”.
In correspondence with Bar Council chairman Seán Guerin SC before Monday’s deadline, Mr Burke said he had been actively seeking a master since October 2022 without success. He said he had contacted the Law Library member relations team requesting assistance, but was told none could be provided other than being directed to the list of potential masters.
He said he was “deeply concerned that I am receiving different treatment to that experienced by other applicants for membership of the Law Library who have not established a pupillage arrangement”.
He referred to a submission from the Bar to the Legal Services Regulatory Authority which said newly qualified barristers “can be assured of sourcing a master in order to complete their year of pupillage”.
In a reply last Thursday, Mr Guerin said potential masters were being made aware of Mr Burke’s application and of any other applicants who had not yet secured a master. The council, he added, was making inquiries about an “incident” at its stand at last week’s National Ploughing Championships.
Members of Mr Burke’s family had raised his difficulty in finding a master with barristers at the stand and claimed that people who did not accept “transgender ideology” were not wanted by the council. Security staff were eventually called.
When contacted after 5pm on Monday about Mr Burke’s situation, a spokesman for the Bar of Ireland said it does not comment on individual applicants.
It is unknown whether any other barrister had not obtained a master but sources said failure to do so was very rare.
Last April, Mr Burke, representing himself, won his appeal against his District Court conviction for a breach of the peace over a “melee” that followed his brother Enoch’s failed appeal before the Court of Appeal, which was part of his long running employment dispute with Wilson’s Hospital school in Co Westmeath.
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