Barristers

Little more than a third (37%) of barristers, chambers and firms regulated by the Bar Standards Board are fully complying with its rules on price and service transparency, it has emerged.

The Legal Sector Workers Union has committed to backing legal action Bar professional training course students sitting exams next month may want to bring against the Bar Standards Board.

Larger law firms face a new levy of £100-200 per £1m of revenue to support the government’s economic crime plan, under proposals outlined by the Treasury yesterday.

The Bar Council is applying for a £5m loan under the government’s coronavirus business interruption loan scheme amid concerns that nearly a third of legal aid barristers may leave the Bar next year.

A barrister has been ordered to hand over details of who else had access to a controversial Twitter account that harassed activists campaigning against antisemitism in the Labour Party.

Progress by the legal regulators in understanding and tackling ongoing inequalities in the profession is “too slow” and lacks “strategic direction”, the Legal Services Board (LSB) has said. The oversight regulator said there were “fundamental shortcomings” in the collection of… Read More

The drunken barrister who threatened a fellow member of chambers over a tenancy application did so because he believed there was a “vindictive campaign” to damage the pupil’s prospects.

A drunken barrister who threatened a fellow member of chambers in a bid to have them accede to a tenancy application has been reprimanded by a Bar disciplinary tribunal.

Online invigilators for the Bar exams taking place in August have been trained to differentiate between candidates looking around naturally and trying to read hidden notes, students have been warned.

The Inns of Court should build a “large co-working space”, possibly on one of their “grand gardens”, to increase the number of pupillages at a time when record numbers are looking for them.

Barristers who believe their chambers are ‘colour-blind’ and treat everyone the same “have a problem” and need to change their mindset, a high-profile black QC has said.

Large chambers should be prepared to look after smaller sets “chased out” by their landlords by sharing premises and clerks, a senior criminal law barrister has said.

Disability awareness should be a professional requirement, and a mandatory element of criminal lawyers’ CPD, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has recommended.

Legal regulators have reacted coolly to the recommendation of Professor Stephen Mayson that they be replaced by a single organisation, arguing instead the case for specialism.

Solicitors and barristers should publish data on which advocates are instructed in certain criminal cases as a way to counter the “gender brief gap”, a QC has suggested.