Barristers

A senior barrister who headbutted a junior female member of chambers during a drunken row, leaving her on the ground with blood all over her face, has been suspended for three months.

The head of the Scottish Bar has referred himself to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission after being caught talking on a train about his client, Alex Salmond, in a derogatory manner.

Criminal defence solicitors have threatened to stop attending police stations and a protocol to protect pupil barristers was published among efforts to protect the profession during the pandemic.

Legal professionals involved in court and tribunal hearings, as well as those advising people deprived of their liberty or on executing wills are ‘keyworkers’, the Ministry of Justice has said.

There has been a “strong improvement” among the legal regulators in their approach to anti-money laundering, their oversight body has reported.

Students on the Bar professional training course have written a letter to the Bar Standards Board to object to its decision to cancel the April sitting of their exams. LPC students are preparing a similar letter.

Barristers who follow official guidance on Covid-19 will not be in breach of their professional obligations, the BSB has said amid a range of developments in the courts, PI and conveyancing.

A barrister convicted of assault after beating a woman and of failing to surrender to custody has been reprimanded and suspended from practice for four months.

A High Court judge has allowed three new harassment allegations against barrister Barbara Hewson to go ahead, while upholding an earlier ruling that a host of other ones should be struck out.

The High Court has upheld the reprimand and fine issued to a barrister who sent a “seriously offensive” tweet in a private capacity that was “racially charged and derogatory to women”.

The Legal Services Board is ramping up pressure on the Law Society, the Bar Council and other approved regulators over ensuring the independence of their regulatory arms.

The Law Society and Bar Council have strongly attacked plans by the Legal Ombudsman to extend its publication of information about complaints, arguing that it would not help consumers.

Written pupillage agreements will become compulsory from 1 May 2020, the Bar Standards Board has decreed, while all chambers have to bring their recruitment into line with the pupillage gateway.

A barrister suspended for sending obscene and offensive tweets “might well have scaled the heights of the profession” had it not been for her actions outside of her practice, a tribunal has said.

The Bar Council is to explore how to deliver training to barristers about dealing with suicidal clients after a family law practitioner related her own harrowing experiences confronting the issue.