Barristers

The Bar Council has called for strict new rules to check that criminal law solicitors are acting properly when they guide clients to in-house advocates as opposed to external counsel.

A pioneering barrister who overturned a disciplinary tribunal ruling that she had conducted litigation in breach of the Bar’s then code of conduct, has lost her claim for compensation against the Bar Standards Board.

A future where would-be criminal law barristers train together with solicitors and work at law firms before joining a “smaller, specialist Bar” later in their careers was sketched out yesterday in the government-commissioned review of criminal advocacy.

Criminal law barristers have urged the Bar Standards Board to come clean on whether pressure from the government was behind its decision to launch a consultation tightening the rules on returning instructions.

Control over the appointment of the next chairman of the Solicitors Regulation Authority was taken away from the Law Society yesterday after the Legal Services Board introduced new rules governing the process.

The timetable for advocates to register for the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates has been thrown into chaos as a result of the continuing judicial review of its legality. Meanwhile, the Bar Standards Board has begun the search for a new chair.

The number of tenancies available for newly qualified barristers collapsed in the most recent year for which figures are available, the annual Bar Barometer has revealed. But the Bar Council and Bar Standards Board now say it is wrong.

More chambers have come out in open criticism of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) and Bar Council’s deal with the government over legal aid last week. Meanwhile, the BSB is consulting on whether a fee cut by the Legal Aid Agency should no longer automatically entitle a barrister to return instructions.

The legal challenge to the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) is nearly at an end after the Court of Appeal refused permission to appeal the High Court decision that rejected it.

A tiny number of criminal advocates has so far signed up to the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA), suggesting a profession-wide boycott of the scheme is holding.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has condemned the recent Legal Services Board recommendation of a civil standard of proof for use across disciplinary tribunals as “looking like a small tail wagging a large dog”.

Three-quarters of the recommendations made by the 2012 Browne report into the disciplinary regime for barristers – sparked by irregularities over appointments to the disciplinary panels – have so far been implemented, according to a Bar Standards Board report.

The sanctions and appeals regimes of the frontline regulators are an inconsistent “jumble” of different powers that may protect lawyers rather than consumers, according to the Legal Services Board.

One of the first barristers to receive authority from the Bar Standards Board to conduct litigation has said her fixed-fee direct access business has been so successful she plans to licence the venture to other barristers.

Statutory guidance that requires legal regulators to move away from assuming would-be lawyers have to spend a certain amount of time training before they qualify was published yesterday by the Legal Services Board.