Barristers

Some 116 new QCs were named yesterday, with the appointment body revealing that more women applied for silk this year and the majority were successful – unlike men.

Advocates unable to cover extended operating hours in the courts will likely lose work and could be driven out of the profession as a result, a high-profile group of women barristers has warned.

Eight commercial chambers have signed up to a Bar Council scheme to fund criminal law pupillages that would otherwise not be available because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A tribunal was entitled to disbar a barrister over her conduct of a dispute with the father of their children, the High Court has ruled in the latest case to consider the reach of regulation into personal lives.

Children’s charities have criticised the failure to take forward recommendations that youth court advocates receive mandatory training to ensure they have the right skills.

A barrister has secured a second retraction and damages from a national newspaper after being wrongly accused of making death threats to a law student.

A High Court judge has expressed concern that a litigant in person has threatened violence against lawyers for the people he is suing while dismissing a bid to disqualify the solicitors from acting.

A barrister convicted of refusing to undergo breath tests when suspected of drink driving has been reprimanded by a tribunal, which criticised him for giving a no-comment interview to police.

A barrister of “good judgement” who had to make rapid decisions in a “pressurised environment” was not negligent even though it turned out her client was wrongly convicted.

There has been a significant increase in the number of complaints about the conduct of barristers outside of practice, it has emerged, as the implications of the Beckwith ruling continue to reverberate.

The Bar Standards Board is to “reflect” on the duty on barristers to report harassment, with efforts to improve reporting proving ineffective, as it looks at new measures to tackle bullying and harassment.

Chambers should conduct race equality audits and, if necessary, introduce “positive action” to address the problems identified, as well as publish anti-racist statements, the BSB is set to say.

The Republic of Ireland’s single regulator for the legal profession has decided that it would be “premature” to abolish the distinction between solicitors and barristers.

A senior government barrister, who was one of the first people convicted of ‘upskirting’, has been banned from returning to practice for six months after he completes his sentence.

A group of barristers has launched a bid to end what they describe as a “shocking” lack of diversity on the Western Circuit, where none of the full-time circuit judges are from BAM) backgrounds.