Barristers

A barrister who made national headlines after it was discovered he had falsified his educational qualifications and attainments was disbarred on appeal because of fresh evidence that undermined his mitigation, it has emerged.

The Legal Services Board is heading for another confrontation with the Law Society after proposing to take away its responsibility for appointing the chairman and board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The frontline regulators will be required to have lay chairs in future after the Legal Services Board (LSB) pressed ahead with its controversial change to the internal governance rules.

The legal challenge to the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) is not yet dead after it emerged that the claimants have gone to the Court of Appeal to seek permission to appeal.

Comments made by the new Bar Council chairman in an interview with Legal Futures have led the Legal Services Board to doubt whether the Bar Council truly accepted the recent findings that it improperly influenced its regulatory arm.

The Bar Standards Board is set to introduce a series of measures to improve diversity reporting among barristers after the vast majority refused to answer many of the questions posed about their backgrounds.

The Legal Services Board’s consultation on its plan to oblige frontline regulators to have lay chairs has met a barrage of opposition from regulators and lawyers, pitted against consumer advocates, which strongly backed the measure.

The Legal Services Board made “a mountain out of a molehill” with its investigation into Bar Council interference with its independent regulator, the new chairman of the Bar has claimed.

Responses to the Legal Services Board’s (LSB) legal education and training framework have revealed broad opposition to its proposal to invoke statutory powers to ensure frontline regulators fall into line behind the LSB’s vision.

The first registration deadline for the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) has been extended again, the Joint Advocacy Group announced today. However, it will not be delaying the scheme to await the outcome of the Jeffrey review of criminal advocacy.

The frontline legal regulators yesterday launched a groundbreaking consumer-facing information website that aims to demystify the legal profession for ordinary people.

Monday’s failed judicial review of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) has done little to quell the mutiny among criminal law barristers, even though the Bar Standards Board has called on them to “respect the court’s decision”.

The Legal Services Board was on the verge of issuing an unprecedented public censure of the Bar Council over its interference with the independence of the Bar Standards Board, new papers have revealed.

The freedom for barristers to accept direct instructions from lay foreign clients – or from lay clients in England and Wales for a foreign matter – without having to undertake public access training is rapidly coming to an end.

An increasing tendency among solicitors to pay referral fees to each other and to use solicitor-advocates is diverting work away from junior barristers, ultimately threatening the quality of the judiciary, according to the Bar Council.