Features

The Bar is changing. Toby Craig of the Bar Council looks at how the Bar is having to adapt to meet these changes.  

A modern Bar prides itself on its values and on high quality, well trained, specialist advocacy. Its product is second-to-none. It is a small profession; a cadre. Barristers are very good value, highly mobile and can provide relevant and realistic advice to their clients. However, as with so much in life, it is one thing having a good product; it is another to sell it. Good work will not alone speak for itself. Effective marketing, and ensuring that the sales pitch is responding to a rapidly changing clientele of varying sophistication, is essential. 

The Conference is open to barristers under 10 years’ Call, pupils and BPTC students. A Conference brochure and registration form will be available from mid-August. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis so early booking is advisable.  

Stephen Cobb QC looks at The Family Justice Review and the refreshingly positive view it takes of Family lawyers, and considers its implications

Every year, half a million people are involved in the family justice system, turning to it in times of great stress and conflict. But it is a system under great strain, with “shocking” delays in the resolution of cases (“little short of scandalous”); this is one of the key findings of the Family Justice Review (FJR) panel, chaired by David Norgrove, which has recently published its Interim Report. 

A long time coming. The Government has finally published its response to its legal aid consultation -  and its Legal Aid Bill. Charles Hale and Toby Craig examine them.  

A long time coming and more stop and start than Wimbledon in the rain, eventually, on 21 June, the Government published its response to its legal aid consultation. 

Job titles
CEO and Head of Clerking Services Devereux

Devereux Chambers covers the professional markets in insurance and reinsurance, employment law, tax, finance, sports, energy, telecommunications and education. It has a large and successful team advising and representing those engaged in cases involving personal injury, clinical negligence and health and safety and offers arbitration and mediation services.

Following details of his private life being splashed across the newspapers, Max Mosley brought a successful privacy action against News Group Newspapers Ltd in 2008.

He then complained to the European Court of Human Rights about the lack of any legal requirement in the UK for the press to notify an individual before publishing details about his or her private life. Here he explains why 

Rory Field looks at the International Association of Prosecutors (IAP) and how it can open the door for barristers at home to explore opportunities abroad.  

What is the IAP and what can it do for a barrister in England or Wales? More relevant perhaps is how could it be of benefit to you the reader? 

In the light of the News of the World phone hacking saga Sarah Lewis and Yousif Elagab examine the difficult legal issues now surrounding voicemail hacking and breaches of privacy

The demise of the News of the World has blown the phone hacking saga wide open.  The seemingly endless revelations of investigative techniques, without conscience or legitimate purpose, have embroiled not only the media and celebrities but the police, the CPS and Parliament, in particular the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. 

R v Grimble is not what it seems and phone hacking strikes close to home

July 11, 2011: “When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.” -Otto von Bismarck.

My belief that Jason Grimble, the vapid youth I was defending for the alleged murder of Claude Allerick, the late and loathed circuit judge and former member of Gutteridge Chambers, had been tempted into crime by kinky leanings on the part of the victim, causing him to entice Grimble and another street boy into his flat late on a Christmas Eve for who knows what fun and games, proved to be wide of the mark.  

Adam Sampson, Chief Legal Ombudsman, discusses setting up the Legal Ombudsman scheme and the issues arising when familiarising 300 new staff members with the “inns” and outs of the Bar.   

One of the difficulties in setting up the new Legal Ombudsman scheme has been to try to make sure that all of our 300 staff - all recently recruited, and mostly from outside the legal profession - have a good grasp of the nuances of the legal world.