Features

Derek Wood QC assesses the first phase of the Legal Education and Training Review, the June 2013 Report by the appointed Research Team, and examines its value.  

This lengthy Report was commissioned by the front-line regulators of the three main branches of the legal profession – the Institute of Legal Executives, the Bar Standards Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (ILEX, BSB and SRA)–who have established an overall Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) to consider the future of legal education and training in the light of the Legal Services Act 2007. The Report is addressed primarily to those regulators. It is the first phase of the LETR. The LETR itself had been prompted in large measure by remarks circulated by the Chairman of the Legal Services Board that the nation’s legal education and training system is “unfit for purpose” or “fit only for a bygone age”. The Report does not support these statements. The regulators, having received the Report, will consult their members on its findings. The BSB will ask the Bar for its views in due course. 

New Year in the Autumn, and the law of unintended consequences  

September 15, 2013: “To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.” – Daniel Patrick Moynihan  

Some begin their new year in the Autumn; others start on January 1 and a third class commence on April 6. I am not here referring to the Chinese New Year, the Julian Calendar or the religious obsession with new moons, but the Professional New Year, followed by the universities, schools, and others, including the legal profession; the Traditional New Year celebrated with increasingly extravagant displays to warm the hearts of every rolling news channel, somewhat eclipsing those Scottish performances which were viewed by the rest of us with incomprehension and dismay in the sixties and seventies; and the Financial New Year celebrated by the Treasury, HMRC and accountants. 

Daniella Waddoup on reforming the criminal defences of insanity and automatism  

The relationship between crime and mental disorder is a complex and multi-faceted one, leaving criminal justice and mental health systems to grapple with a range of difficult questions. These include, but are not limited to, the following: does mental disorder cause crime? Are mentally disordered offenders less culpable by reason of their condition? Are they criminally responsible at all? What role does the severity of mental disorder play? 

Job title
Senior Clerk, 2KBW 

2KBW is one of the Western Circuit’s leading sets with chambers in London and Portsmouth, specialising in crime, family and civil law. 

You have played an integral part in re-invigorating the profile of your set. How is your chambers reacting to changes at the Criminal Bar?
I started my career at 2KBW in 1988 when chambers was one of a very few successful common law Western Circuit sets. I returned to chambers at the beginning of 2012. From the outset it was clear that chambers had largely veered away from the areas of Family and Civil law and I wanted to focus on returning the set to its “common law” roots. 

Joy Adeniran on how she was able both to help and to learn during her internship at the Women’s Legal Centre in Cape Town  

Last June, I was selected to undertake the City Law School human rights internship to the Women’s Legal Centre (WLC) in Cape Town, South Africa. As an aspiring public law barrister and recent BPTC graduate, this placement provided an opportunity to build on the skills learnt on the course. I spent three months at the centre. 

Designed to help applicants for Silk and judicial appointments from all areas of the profession, the Bar Council’s Mentoring Service for the Bar launches this month. Amanda-Jane Field explains  

This month sees the launch of the Bar Council’s Mentoring Service for the Bar. The idea began as a joint initiative between two Bar Council Committees, the Legal Services Committee and the Employed Barristers’ Committee. Supported by the Equality & Diversity Committee, it is designed to increase the number of successful applicants for Silk and judicial appointments from all sectors of the Bar. It builds on the many years’ work that the Bar Council has undertaken to increase diversity in the profession and in the higher judiciary. The service aims to put applicants for silk and judicial appointments in the best position they can be in, by providing an adviser to help analyse their skills and complete the evidence-based forms. 

With keynote speeches from the new Lord Chief Justice and from Lord Pannick QC, Saba Naqshbandi explains why you should attend this year’s Annual Bar Conference  

Key Facts
Date: Saturday 2 November 2013
Venue: Westminster Park Plaza
CPD: 6 points
Cost: Prices start from £125 

With keynote speeches from the new Lord Chief Justice and from Lord Pannick QC, Saba Naqshbandi explains why you should attend this year’s Annual Bar Conference  

Key Facts
Date: Saturday 2 November 2013
Venue: Westminster Park Plaza
CPD: 6 points
Cost: Prices start from £125 

With frustrations common on both sides, Maura McGowan QC, Chairman of the Bar, investigates the process by which the Legal Aid Agency pays barristers, and Matthew Coats, its Chief Executive, explains the agency’s work and priorities.   

I do not generally suffer from paranoid delusions but I confess to a belief that any file in my name which arrived at the Legal Aid Agency was spirited away and hidden behind a filing cabinet for a few months before being dusted down in order to be rejected because I had missed a full stop. Having spoken to practitioners over the last year or two I have discovered that I am not alone. Why do so many of us think this is what is happening? Are they out to get us? 

Nicolas Bragge outlines highlights of the colourful life of Master Richard Wakeford VC whose photograph is one of many past Masters on show at the Rolls Building.  

The Chancery Masters, together with other judiciary, moved to the Rolls Building from the Thomas More Building two years ago; more recently, photographs of past and current Masters have been displayed there for public view. It is hoped that this has been welcomed as a source of interest by those who appear before us.