Barristers

Macho masculinity and the alignment of what is generally considered professional at the Bar with heterosexuality, is creating problems for sexual minority barristers.

A barrister who identifies as non-binary sometimes has to endure a judge’s ignorance about how to address them correctly, a meeting heard this week.

An organisation aimed at making the Bar more accessible to disabled people and improving the diversity of the judiciary was launched last week.

Barristers’ clerks must step up and ensure that both work coming in and marketing efforts by chambers are done with an eye to equality in the way they are distributed, a seminar heard this week.

The proportion of barristers aged over 50 has tripled over the past 30 years, while the number of pupils has shrunk by almost 30%, research by the Bar Standards Board has found.

Discrimination is the “sole identifiable cause” for the paucity of Black barristers, particularly at QC level, a co-chair of the Bar Council’s race working group has argued.

Only 10% of students who successfully completed the Bar professional training course last year had started a pupillage by the end of March 2021, according to new figures.

The CPS is to use a new annual declaration by panel barristers of any protected characteristics to analyse the proportionality of case allocation and fee payments within chambers.

A public access barrister who engaged in “unnecessarily hostile and antagonistic correspondence” with opposing solicitors has been suspended for six months.

A practising barrister and sole director of an alternative business structure has added a third string to his bow by launching a legal recruitment firm.