Barristers

Ben Conlon, former head of the pupillage committee at 3 Temple Gardens, has launched a judicial review arguing that the Visitors to the Inns of Court should made up only of High Court judges.

Nicola Sawford of Serle Court has become the first chambers chief executive ever appointed a board member of the Bar Standards Board. A chartered accountant, she has been in her post for over 10 years.

The High Court has ordered a Jersey lawyer to pay an English barrister’s fee, dismissing a claim that the fee was an honorarium which was not legally enforceable.

There has been a hitch in the Legal Services Board approving the Bar Standards Board’s bid to regulate entities, meaning that the LSB has had to issue a formal warning notice that it is considering whether to refuse the application.

The number of barristers either disbarred or suspended nearly doubled in the last year, the Bar Standards Board has revealed as it bids to focus more on serious wrongdoing.

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) is not expecting the introduction of entity regulation to lead to many barristers joining forces in a single business, it has emerged.

Dr Vanessa Davies, director of the Bar Standards Board (BSB), has made it clear that the regulator will push for more independence in the future.

The Legal Services Board is to hire an external accountant to examine how the Law Society and other regulators spend money raised through compulsory practising certificate fees.

Two barristers caught up in high-profile disciplinary actions have referred complaints about lack of funding from the Bar Mutual indemnity fund to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), it has emerged.

A barrister portal scheme operated by the North West Legal Consortium, a group of over 30 local authorities, has been condemned as “scandalous” by the Institute of Barristers’ Clerks (IBC).