Features

David Wurtzel talks to Peter Moffat, the screenwriter of the new BBC series Silk.  

Had he remained at the Bar, Peter Moffat at 48 might now be considering an application for Silk. Instead the BBC is screening his six-part series called Silk, about two 30-something barristers who have reached that turning point in their careers. Moffat is probably the most prolific screenwriter of criminal justice dramas and has two BAFTAs to attest to his success. 

William Byfield, Gutteridge Chambers
To hell with slashed fees, the BSB, higher taxes, HM Government, and my client in the Claude Allerick trial! In the frozen countryside, there lurks worse.   

15 January 2011:
“… look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.”

 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,
Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle 

Job title - Barrister, Atkin Chambers
Qualifications - Call 1989
CV - Core areas of practice: Litigation and arbitration, domestic and international, in the construction, civil engineering, energy, oil and gas sectors 

You practice from a specialist set of fewer than 40 members. What do you think are the advantages? 

For me, it is important to belong to a small set where all of us specialise. Atkin Chambers has expanded organically largely by recruiting pupils. I would expect rapid or large expansion would dilute our expertise, and be perceived as such. 

The Inner Temple recently put on a rehearsed reading of “Theseus & the Minotaur – What Really Happened”. The playwright, Andrew Caldecott QC, explains the background and the play’s narrator, Nigel Pascoe QC, discusses his experience 

The Bar Council trips to the Gulf help open up doors that are not available to individual practitioners or chambers, writes Peter Lodder QC.  

It has never been more important to find and develop new markets for the Bar. The Business Development Mission to Oman, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar – which took place between 3 and 9 December 2010 – came less than a month after the Government published its Green Paper, Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales. We did not need this incentive, but it added to the significance that those who came from practice areas more readily associated with international work, were joined on this trip by criminal practitioners. 

Eleanor Davison examines the role of the Serious Fraud Office under the new regime 

The Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”) is currently the lead agency in the UK in prosecuting cases of overseas corruption. Under s 10 of the Bribery Act 2010 the SFO is poised to become the principal enforcer of the new regime and its declared aim in exercising its prosecutorial powers is to generate a cultural change in business so that bribery is no longer acceptable. 

The new Act: a review of the main provisions, by Robert-Jan Temmink 

The much-heralded Bribery Act 2010 (“the Act”) received the Royal Assent on 8 April 2010. Previous anti-bribery law had been a hotch-potch of common law and statutory provisions from 1889 to 1916 which together were difficult to understand, hard to apply and even harder for prosecutors to use effectively. The Act abolishes the common law offences and sweeps away the 19th and 20th Century Prevention of Corruption Acts. 

Roger Smith OBE spells out what the consultation means for practitioners 

The legal aid cuts advanced by the consultation paper Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales are so deep that they will force major change to the very structure of both branches of the legal profession. 

Following WikiLeaks, Shonali Routray examines the position of UK civil servant whistleblowers. Are there safe routes for whistleblowers to raise their concerns rather than having to rely on anonymous leaks, she asks 

The dramatic twists and turns in the story of WikiLeaks and the release of over 250,000 US diplomatic “cables” – secure communications between the US State Department and American embassies around the globe dating back 50 years – raise some fundamental questions about the workings of Government. 

The aim of the BSB’s new chambers’ monitoring scheme is to help chambers comply with their regulatory requirements. Sam Stein QC and Oliver Hanmer talk to David Wurtzel about the issues raised so far.  

Sam Stein QC, Chairman of the Quality Assurance Committee of the Bar Standards Board (“BSB”) since January 2010, sees his role as one in which he is helping the Bar by enabling it to comply with the world of modern regulation.