Barristers

Regulators need to do more with the diversity data they now collect in order to drive improvements in recruitment and particularly progression and retention within the profession, the Legal Services Board will shortly say.

Appeal judges have decided that a disciplinary case in which they found a Bar Standards Board official responsible for “subverting the rules” on disclosure should return to the Visitors to the Inns of Court.

The barristers challenging the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates have today been granted permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. The hearing is listed for March.

The Bar Standards Board has launched a pilot scheme to test plans to replace its hours-based CPD system with a new scheme in 2017. The pilot, launched last month, will run until March next year.

The Bar Standards Board is investigating complaints about 17 barristers at the same chambers, it has emerged. Meanwhile, there have been 55 expressions of interest and seven formal applications to form BSB-regulated entities.

The Court of Appeal has criticised in the strongest language the behaviour of an official at the Bar Standards Board responsible for “subverting the rules” on disclosure in a case that led to a barrister being disbarred.

Tariq Rehman, the barrister who last month became the first lawyer to be ‘named and shamed’ by the Legal Ombudsman for a series of complaints, has been banned from taking on any new public access cases for the time being.

More than 1,000 barristers have already signed up to a “game changing” initiative that aims to smooth the way for consumers and businesses to use public access, Legal Futures can reveal.

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has spoken of a “real appetite” for change as barristers aiming to set up 18 niche advocacy firms contacted the regulator.

Justice secretary Chris Grayling has promised criminal law barristers that the government will “take measures” to strengthen the Legal Aid Agency’s ban on solicitors demanding referral fees.

The Law Society has responded to a Bar Standards Board call for evidence on the cab-rank rule by questioning its “operational value”. A survey of solicitors who regularly use barristers found that only one person had actually invoked the rule.

David Hassall, a senior partner turned barrister whose career mirrors recent changes in legal services, has set up an alternative business structure – which he intends to operate on a ‘John Lewis’ profit share model.

A report for the Bar Standards Board, which concluded that the regulator handled cases involving ethnic minority barristers in a “transparent, consistent and fair” way, has been strongly attacked by equality expert Professor Gus John.

A barrister who claims she is the victim of racial discrimination by the Bar Standards Board has said she will appeal against last week’s High Court ruling that she has an arguable case but that it was brought out of time.

A black barrister had an arguable case that she was indirectly discriminated against by the Bar Standards Board through its disciplinary procedures, the High Court ruled yesterday.