Features

Job title: Barrister, 2 Bedford Row

2 Bedford Row consists of 18  silks and 55 juniors practicing domestically and internationally in their specialist areas of  Crime, Fraud, HSE, Professional Discipline, Regulatory and Sports Law and has a high profile client base both here and abroad .

Tell me about your day today and the week ahead?

I’m prosecuting a trial in Croydon where there are allegations of serious sexual misconduct involving a teacher on one of his former pupils. I’m starting another trial next week in central London dealing with the paedophile unit and I’m also lodging documents with the Court of Appeal in respect of an appeal against conviction and making a trip north where I’m representing a defendant charged with relatively serious fraud allegations.

A judge’s view

Mr Justice Christopher Clarke gives Counsel a view from the Bench 

It is a commonplace observation to bewail the size of modern judgments compared with the economy of our distinguished predecessors. What they would have thought of the plethora of documents with which even a modest civil case is now encumbered I dare not to think. In the days when any copy had to be made by hand it was remarkable how few documents you could deal with. 

John Newth concludes his review of the special tax provisions that affect practising barristers, focusing on the tax surrounding expenses and barristers’ clerks. 

In Part 1 (Counsel June 2012), I dealt with the end of the cash basis and the consequences of having to include work in progress at full value after June 2005. The effect of these provisions on newly qualified barristers, and numerical examples showing how the statutory changes could work in practice, were also included. In this article I turn to the practical issues of tax deductible expenses and the taxation of barristers’ clerks. 

Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) recently published its follow-up to the 2009 review of CPS in-house prosecution advocacy and case presentation. Chief Inspector Michael Fuller QPM gauges progress. 

The CPS’s aspiration routinely to conduct its own high quality advocacy in all courts, and across the full range of cases, is realistic and achievable. However, it is dependent on the current high-level focus on quality being sustained and advocacy experience being developed. 

David Hammond continues recounting his experiences as a UK representative for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and legal advisor to the European Union (EU) in Somalia for the establishment of the East African Legal Advisory Programme in support of the current EU counter-piracy programme.  

In the short period of time the EU team had in both Somaliland and Puntland, I had concentrated rounds of engagements with Ministers for Justice, Attorney Generals, Directors of Public Prosecution and Ministers of Interior and Security to name but a few. Their unified message was reflected in all of our meetings. In addition to the humanitarian assistance provided through the United Nations (UN) and other Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), further expert support for government departments was required in terms of monitoring, mentoring, training and advisory roles in the maritime and counter-piracy environment. Those departments needed western legal expertise to continue with the advancement of their own domestic legislation, judicial engagement in the lawless coastal areas and development of general legal skills. Consequently, our offers of such assistance were warmly welcomed. 

Job title
Barrister, 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square

4-5 Gray’s Inn Square specialises in providing legal advice and advocacy in public, planning and commercial law. With 56 barristers, chambers handles cases at all levels of expertise and complexity for a range of clients.

Toby Craig and Charles Hale reflect on the results of May’s local and mayoral elections and the plans revealed by the second Queen’s Speech of the Coalition Government  

Trials and Jubilations

And in the blink of an eye, it was all over. It’s been a busy month for the Queen, as she put quill to parchment to grant the Royal Assent to what is now the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act. That marked the end of a long and arduous lobbying process, which sadly was always to have a disappointing outcome, but with some important victories. Having been enthralled with the Bill’s progress on these pages for some months, we have nothing further to say on the topic (for now...), but you can read an excellent and extensive summary of the passage of the Bill by Harriet Deane, who worked tirelessly on the Bill on the Bar’s behalf, later on in this issue. 

Sara Nathan spent six years on the PCCC and another six at the Judicial Appointments Commission. Here she offers her reflections on the Bar.  

Six years on the Bar Council’s PCCC (Professional Conduct Committee of the General Council of the Bar, the precursor to the Bar Standards Board) and another six at the Judicial Appointments Commission mean that I have had more contact with barristers than most lay people ever can. And that’s a stimulating experience. Now both are over, I’m asked to reflect on over a decade of working with the Bar but never being one of you. 

In a two part feature for Counsel, John Newth reviews the special tax provisions that affect practising barristers.  

The taxation of barristers comes within the definition of ‘a specialised profession’ as far as UK taxation is involved. This article sets out the distinctive statutory and practical considerations that must be born in mind when dealing with the taxation affairs of individual barristers.

End of the cash basis 

The cash basis of preparing barristers’ accounts came to an end when section 42, FA 1998 was enacted, requiring accounts to be prepared ‘on a true and fair basis’. Reference to this basis was replaced by section 101(5), FA 2002 which required accounts to be prepared ‘in accordance with generally accepted accounting practice (GAAP)’. See also the HMRC Business Income Manual at BIM 74000- BIM 74015. 

An old hand’s guide to the Machiavellian machinations of chambers  

May 8, 2012: “…and there is no new thing under the sun” Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1, Verse 9.

The impending collision of two of my cases, one overrunning and one about to start, was averted: not by my learned junior in the former case keeping his promise that I could leave after my speech since, by then, he had vanished himself, but owing to the modern habit of prosecuting authorities to leave until the last possible moment the service of evidence that it has had for ages but has only recently perceived as being both in its possession and vital to the successful prosecution of the case. Thus, the arrival of about two thousand pages of evidence recovered from defendants’ computers, served last week in the latter case, has had the effect of aborting the whole trial until next year. Despite threats by the trial judge about wasted costs orders against the prosecution, I will believe it when I see it.