Barristers

A barrister who failed to tell a client that he was withdrawing from their case before the Court of Appeal has effectively been suspended for three years. He did not tell his chambers either.

The Legal Services Board has given both the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board a clean bill of health in the way they enforce their rules.

A barrister jailed for 20 years after pleading guilty to 37 charges relating to child sexual abuse has been disbarred. John Guess, called in 2000, had been a lawyer for the Welsh government.

A senior male barrister found to have engaged in “unwanted sexual conduct” towards a woman has been reprimanded and fined £3,000 by a Bar disciplinary tribunal.

The Legal Services Board should focus on tackling sexual harassment in the workplace instead of pushing its agenda of ‘change for change’s sake’, the Law Society has said.

The Legal Services Board has approved the new training regime for barristers that will open up four routes to qualification, including an apprenticeship, and strength regulatory oversight of the inns of court.

The Bar Council has called on barristers to take action over bullying by judges that they experience or witness, and is looking at a new approach to overcome reluctance to report incidents.

Support for diversity initiatives has come from the upper levels of the barristers’ profession, with a top QC warning of a “teststerone overdose” in the wake of criticism of how some men behave.

The government, legal regulators and others need to come together to ensure that the next generation of lawyers have the chance to study social welfare law or face even more ‘advice deserts’.

There needs to be less talk and more action to tackle the “crisis” of female criminal law barristers leaving the profession, the head of the Criminal Bar Association has argued.