Barristers

The number of students on the Bar Professional Training Course from Asian backgrounds has increased to the point where it almost equals the number of white students, new figures have revealed. The figures have also highlighted the tiny number of students with lower second degrees who secure a pupillage.

The government should return regulation to the legal profession’s representative bodies, rather than introduce full separation, the Law Society has said in response to yesterday’s surprise announcement from the Treasury that separation is now on the cards. The move is set to open up the fault lines in the current regulatory set-up created by the 2007 Legal Services Act.

The Legal Services Board has joined solicitors in questioning government plans to introduce additional regulation of criminal advocacy. The Bar Council supported the proposals by the Ministry of Justice.

The Bar Standards Board has reported that its annual income is expected to plummet by almost a quarter (24%) by the end of this financial year, with the smaller than expected number of firms or ‘entities’ that had sought its oversight contributing significantly to the shortfall.

A barrister who admitted that he had talked to jurors at Basildon Railway Station after a trial has been reprimanded and fined £300 by a Bar disciplinary tribunal. Mohammed Omar Faruk said the incident was unintentional.

Abolishing the status of QC should now be seriously considered in the light of research that shows male Oxbridge-educated junior barristers from London-based chambers are still far more likely to take silk, according to a new study by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The Bar Standards Board has accepted in principle all the recommendations of a hard-hitting report which found “highly variable” standards of advocacy in the youth courts. Only 52% of advocates thought they had sufficient knowledge of the youth justice system to do their job properly.

A Bar disciplinary tribunal has suspended barrister Martin Wynne Jones for three months for representing clients in court without a practising certificate, while disciplinary action has also been taken against a barrister who falsely claimed to have a law degree, and another who made false declarations about criminal convictions.

Clerksroom Direct, which has over 1,000 direct access barristers on its books, has said that only around only 20% of its recent cases have come directly from members of the public. Half came from law firms and the rest from barristers’ chambers.

Barristers need to resist pressure from big clients and government departments to agree not to act against them in the future if they want instructions, the Bar Council has said. It said it would be “professionally improper” to agree to such a condition.