Barristers

A report for the Bar Council on the future of criminal justice and advocacy has recommended that legal executives are kept out of the Crown Courts, while solicitors should only be granted rights of audience if they have undergone the same level of training as barristers.

The Bar Standards Board has finally published a consultation on changes to the standard contractual terms and the cab-rank rule – almost eight months later than it had originally promised.

A former solicitor and non-practising barrister who was convicted of a string of offences – including assaulting two police officers and defrauding the Law Society of £23,000 while a member of its council – has been disbarred two months after she was struck off the roll of solicitors.

More than 80% of barristers have declined to disclose information about their socio-economic backgrounds when asked to do so by their professional regulator, it has emerged.

Sixteen businesses have so far completed their applications to be regulated by the Bar Standards Board, it has emerged. The barristers’ regulator will issue its first licences next month.

The Bar Standards Board has issued a formal request to Queen’s Counsel Appointments – the body which runs the annual silk round – to consider developing a system of re-accrediting criminal QCs as “it is not in the public interest to exempt QCs from quality assurance”.

A barrister from Essex has been given a five-year bankruptcy restrictions order for neglecting his business affairs. Such an order is made on application to the court if the Official Receiver considers that the conduct of a bankrupt has been blameworthy in some other way.

Many lawyers, particularly solicitors and barristers, complain about their practising certificate (PC) fees, but there are high levels of ignorance about what they are paying for, a major cost of regulation survey has found.

A third of Bar disciplinary tribunals last year led to disbarment, nearly twice the proportion of 2013, the Bar Tribunals and Adjudication Service’s (BTAS) annual report has shown.

Almost three months after the Solicitors Regulation Authority opened up its database to comparison websites, only one is actually receiving any information, it has emerged. Meanwhile the Bar Standards Board has opened its Barristers’ Register to the public.

The Legal Services Board should not put the needs of business users of the courts before the “most vulnerable and disempowered”, the Bar Standards Board has argued.

Unnecessary restrictions on in-house lawyers could “impose costs and red tape, frustrate innovation and adversely affect access to justice”, the Legal Services Board has argued.

The profession’s regulators are not doing enough to understand the consumers of lawyers’ services, the Legal Services Board has warned. But it said there has been progress since the first assessment in 2012/13.

The Bar Standards Board has said that there is no need for the Bar Professional Training Course to be delivered as “one, integrated course”, and is also set to give chambers and employers more freedom to design pupillages.

Liverpool-based 7 Harrington Street Chambers has launched what is believed to be the first alternative business structure attached to a barristers’ chambers. It opened for business last week, with three barristers and 7HS practice director as its directors.