Helen is Chairman of the Queen’s Counsel Appointments Selection Panel. Helen has been a member of the Panel since 2009 and its chair since 2012. Helen also chairs a national children’s charity, a boardroom excellence consultancy and is lead director for a major global chocolate and biscuit company.
As the 2016-17 Silk cohort is announced, Counsel probes the appointments system with the Chairman of the Queen’s Counsel Selection Panel, Helen Pitcher OBE
Q The basic principle of Queen’s Counsel Appointments (QCA) has always been that the process should be open, fair and transparent. But over the years, the process itself has been refined. What have been the major changes and how were the lessons learned – that is, how was it determined that something else would work better?
The new Bar Council earnings report presents a collective challenge for the self-employed Bar, remote hearings are changing and Bar Conference is back next month
Launch of the Institute of Neurotechnology and Law
Paul Magrath of ICLR recalls the chequered history of law reporting prior to the 1865 establishment of a Council of Law Reporting
Leading drug, alcohol and DNA testing laboratory, AlphaBiolabs, has made a £500 donation to North West charity Child Concern as part of its Giving Back campaign
Gail Evans, Technical Trainer at AlphaBiolabs, examines the latest trends in illicit drug use as seen in the laboratory, from designer drugs to ‘unexpected’ substances in a donor’s sample
Louise Crush explores the value you can measure in monetary terms alongside the many non-tangible benefits to working with a financial adviser
By Professor Jo Delahunty KC, Kate Brunner KC and Dr Ann Olivarius KC (Hon) OBE
The ‘non-party political’ employment silk advising Labour talks to Stephanie Hayward about employer failure to tackle workplace sexual harassment and the urgent need to reinvent whistleblowing culture
From Parliamentary standards to barrister standards – Kathryn Stone OBE, Chair of the Bar’s regulator, talks to Anthony Inglese CB about roots, respect and reviews
Jessica Foster reviews State Trials and Error – fundraising and showcasing the musical and theatrical talent within the legal profession
Alex Goodman KC on why our electoral laws need an urgent upgrade – they were not designed to address the corruption of popular opinion by AI and deepfakes
