Features

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. 

Chris McWatters talks to Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, about the modernisation of family justice . 

Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division since January, is in defiant mood. He has been tasked with a wholesale modernisation of family justice to reduce delay, the scourge of children’s proceedings. And he isn’t going to tolerate pessimism from family justice professionals who think that, for a variety of reasons, this just can’t be done. 

Ali Naseem Bajwa QC and Terry McGuinness examine port stops carried out under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000  

In June this year, journalist Glenn Greenwald published in The Guardian newspaper the first of a series of reports detailing US and British mass surveillance programmes, based on documents obtained by the National Security Agency whistleblower, Edward Snowden. On 18 August, Mr Greenwald’s partner and occasional assistant, David Miranda, flying via London from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro was stopped at Heathrow Airport under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Mr Miranda was detained for nine hours, questioned and had various items of electronic equipment seized from him. The link between Mr Greenwald’s publications and Mr Miranda’s detention is undisputed. 

As QASA, the assessment of advocates by the judges before whom they appear, is finalised, Lord Carlile suggests a scheme by which the judges themselves are inspected . 

All of us at the Bar have stories about the behaviour of judges. Many are about exceptional brilliance, kindness and courtesy: there is little doubt that the overall quality of the judiciary at every level compares favourably with any other jurisdiction in the world. It is not always so, however: for example, in my early days on the Welsh Circuit there was a ferociously able (both words used literally) judge who, while reaching the correct decisions, reduced not a few barristers to tears, and witnesses to jelly. The trial outcomes were rarely challengeable, but the means of reaching them were sometimes unacceptable. 

Job title
Head of chambers of 37 Park Square Chambers, Leeds. 

37 Park Square Chambers is a leading North Eastern Circuit set, specialising in the core areas of family law, criminal and civil common law. 

You are one of a few elite female QCs at the Bar, and in a further select of female heads of chambers. Do you feel the Bar is improving in supporting women through the profession?
I was fortunate enough to come to the Bar at a time when the real trailblazers had paved the way for female practitioners like myself. Lorna Cole, who was the first female barrister on the North Eastern Circuit, was a real inspiration for many of us who came after her. When she joined circuit she had to eat her meal separate from the men and completely alone in the entrance hall to the venue! Hearing stories like that provided real inspiration for me. 

Andrew Otchie reflects upon the Commercial Court’s approach to granting an anti-anti suit injunction  

The jurisdiction to grant a final injunction to prevent the breach of an arbitration clause is provided by s 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981, which confers upon the court a general power to grant injunctions “in all cases in which it appears to the court to be just and convenient to do so”. 

As party conference season approaches, all the political parties are jockeying for position, as Toby Craig reports  

Later this month, we are expecting the second legal aid consultation, which will quickly absorb the collective minds of the legal profession once again, after an all too brief hiatus. But, of broader interest outside our immediate concerns, Westminster Watchers will be casting their eyes to Glasgow, Brighton and Manchester as party conference season begins again. As the penultimate showcase annual gatherings before the next general election, these are taking on increasing significance as the lines of division between the parties are drawn up, redrafted, polished and set in the run-up to 2015.