News

mooting competition  

Lincoln’s Inn has won the final of the 2012 Atkin’s Mooting Competition, held at the Royal Courts of Justice last week.

House of Commons Scrutiny inquiry into its EU scrutiny system

The House of Commons Scrutiny Committee is conducting a rather searching inquiry into its own EU scrutiny system – its purpose, structure, composition, expectations, etc. The deadline for written submissions was 18 July, but the Committee will be seeking oral evidence during the autumn. For all relevant documentation, go to:
XX http://bit.ly/LirxEd.

tribunals 

Lord Justice Sullivan has been appointed Senior President of Tribunals.  Sullivan LJ took up the role in June, and succeeds Lord Carnwath, who is now a Justice of the Supreme Court.

law commission consultation 

The rights of communications operators to set up masts and install cables for broadband, mobile internet and telephone and television have come under scrutiny by the Law Commission. It has launched a consultation on the Electronic Communications Code, closing 28 October.

We have issued a consultation which seeks views on the Bar Transfer Test (BTT). The BTT is predominantly undertaken by solicitors or overseas lawyers wanting to transfer to the Bar of England and Wales.

The BSB held an Equality and Diversity webinar on Monday 23 July 2012.

The purpose was to introduce a new package of Equality and Diversity Rules that will come in to force in September 2012. The rules will be included within the current Code of Conduct and include requirements for chambers to:

Nominations are now open for the legal category of Women in the City’s Women of Achievements Awards, this year endorsed by the Bar Council. Exceptional legal candidates are invited to enter (or nominate a friend or colleague) before 20 September 2012.

Barristers who did not fill in the Equality and Diversity questionnaire, through the Barrister Connect website (www.barristerconnect.org.uk/login), when renewing practising certificates, are encouraged to spare a few minutes to log back into the system and complete the questionnaire.

profession 

The new equality and diversity rules of the Code of Conduct will take effect from September 1 2012.

These include: the duty to appoint at least one Equality and Diversity Officer in chambers; equality monitoring in respect of staff, barristers, pupils and assessed mini-pupils; fair access to work which ‘includes but is not limited to, the fair distribution of work amongst pupils and members of chambers’; and duties on chambers to have a policy on parental and adoption leave, on flexible working and on reasonable adjustments aimed at supporting disabled clients, barristers and visitors to chambers.

Judiciary 

Women outperformed men in judicial appointments, according to the statistics released in June by the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC).  In the District Judge competitions, 19%  of those eligible to apply were women but 43% of those appointed to the civil courts were women and 47% of those appointed to the criminal courts during the period from October 2011 and March 2012.