"My clerks are sending my work to someone more junior. Do I ask why?"

Dear Empty Diary,

Yes, ask. Asking your clerks about your practice isn't begging. It's part of what you pay them for. Before you do, though, understand what is probably happening, because it is rarely personal.

The three-year squeeze is not your imagination. When a solicitor rings the list without a name in mind, the clerk is matching the matter to a budget and a level. In your first couple of years you are the cheap, available option for mentions, directions hearings and short interlocutory work. As your fees and experience rise, that work naturally moves down to whoever has just come off readers. That isn't a demotion. It's the point at which you have to start being briefed for who you are, not for what you cost.

Clerks also have to build their new barristers. Someone eighteen months behind you needs appearances to develop, and the clerk has a stake in that. Some of the work you've lost was always going to go that way.

But "it's just how it goes" isn't the whole answer, and you won't know whether something else is going on until you ask.

How to ask. Book a proper meeting with your senior clerk. Don't raise it in passing at the counter. Frame it as a practice review, not a complaint: "My diary for February is light, and I'd like to understand where my practice is and what I can do about it." Then ask specific questions:

• - What kind of work do you see me getting now, and what kind am I priced out of?

• - Are my fees right for my seniority and the work I'm doing?

• - Has any solicitor given feedback about me, good or bad?

• - Is there anything about my availability, turnaround or communication that's making me harder to brief?

• - Who are the solicitors you think I should be building relationships with?

Then listen. If the feedback stings, don't argue in the room. Thank them, think about it, and act on what's fair.

Check your own side honestly. Have you returned briefs late in the day, been slow with advices or hard to reach? Have you knocked back work you thought was beneath you? Clerks remember who says yes on a Thursday afternoon.

The real fix isn't the clerks. A sustainable practice runs on solicitors who ring and ask for you by name. If most of your work has come through the list, you have been borrowing your clerks' relationships, not building your own. Over the next few months:

• - Get in touch with every solicitor who has briefed you in the past two years. Don't pitch; just check in on matters and offer help.

• - Write something useful in your area, or present at a CPD session.

• - Go to the events your instructing solicitors go to, not just Bar events.

• - Tell a couple of trusted senior colleagues that you have capacity. Senior counsel often need a junior and look for one they already know.

Use the quiet time well. An empty February is hard on your confidence and your bank balance, but it is also time you won't get back once things pick up. Write the paper, do the CPD, take the coffees.

Finally, don't carry this alone. Talk to your mentor, or a barrister a few years ahead of you. Almost all of them have had a February like this one.

Ashleigh.