Barristers

The High Court has upheld the disbarment of a barrister accused of drafting false grounds of appeal for a client found guilty on drugs charges.

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has proposed that it should be given, for the first time, the power to intervene in barristers’ practices and chambers. It also wants new powers on fines and setting up a compensation fund.

The chairman of the Bar Council has urged the increasing number of barristers who decline to pay a voluntary £100 levy to fund its representative work to think again. Alistair MacDonald contrasted this reluctance with the 7,722 barristers who each made a £30 donation to help fund the Bar Pro Bono Unit.

Tariq Rehman, the barrister ‘named and shamed’ by the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) for the number of complaints against him, has succeeded in a last-minute bid to remove the judge hearing his appeal.

The Bar Standards Board has promised to provide “lighter weight and less costly” regulation than its rivals as it applied to become a regulator of alternative business structures last week. “Many potential entities” wanted to “exploit the greater flexibility” that operating as an ABS could provide.

Scotland’s most senior judges have rejected a bid to allow an English barrister to appear before the country’s highest civil court for the first time in nearly 500 years. They said that the College of Justice Act 1532 remains good law.

Michael Stannard, a former barrister convicted of cheating the public revenue of over £3m, has failed in his latest attempt to challenge a confiscation order made against him. The judge said she had “formed the clear impression” that he was “wholly unrepentant”.

The number of QCs is continuing to fall, statistics from the Bar Standard Board have shown, dropping by more than 200 in four years. This contrasts with the steady rise in the total number of practicing barristers.

A firm set up by Mark Johnson, a solicitor and former partner at Geldards, is among the first dozen entities to be named today as regulated by the Bar Standards Board. He did it because of access to Bar Mutual indemnity insurance and the Bar’s “simpler and more transparent” rules.

All but one of the entities authorised by the Bar Standards Board since the beginning of this month consist of a single barrister, with the other made up of two barristers, it has emerged.

Tariq Rehman, the first lawyer to be ‘named and shamed’ by the Legal Ombudsman for a series of complaints, has been suspended by a Bar disciplinary tribunal. The tribunal suspended him for failing to pay three other barristers for work they had carried out.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority yesterday started an “open” debate about allowing solicitors to pay referral fees for legal aid and criminal work, saying the present ban acts as a barrier to consumer choice. The move is likely to be met with anger by the Bar Council.

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has said that producing a “common document” on the knowledge and skills required by solicitors and barristers has “not proved possible”.

The Bar Standards Board has approved 15 new businesses as it enters the world of entity regulation – but they remain unnamed as they have first to confirm that they have professional indemnity insurance in place.

Jenner & Block has not become the first US law firm licensed as an alternative business structure, it has emerged – rather it was an error by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Plus, call for QC to be open for all, and new members of LeO’s board.