News

“Transparency” is the most important issue facing the family justice system and legislation designed to bring about greater openness is a “lost opportunity”, Lord Justice Munby has said. 

FROM time to time, barristers need guidance on ethical problems related to the Bar's Code of Conduct. For example, you may have
a question about professional embarrassment, or may need guidance if you have a clash of cases, or be uncertain, in family matters, about your duty of disclosure to the Court of information given to you in confidence by your client. 

The BSB is in the process of requesting permission from the Legal Services Board to amend the Bar Training Regulations to require all students on the BPTC to take IELTS (or equivalent) and score a minimum of 7.5 in each section. Please email Rosie Faulkner: rfaulkner@barstandardsboard.org.uk with any comments you may have. 

The new Legal Ombudsman service 

The Bar should be aware that, from Wednesday 6 October 2010, a new Legal Ombudsman service will start operating and will be
responsible for dealing with complaints about the services provided to clients by all legal professionals. This includes complaints about services provided by barristers, solicitors, legal executives and other types of legal professionals. Therefore, from that date, all complaints from clients of barristers about the service a barrister has provided will no longer be dealt with by the Bar Standards Board (BSB) but instead must be dealt with by the Legal Ombudsman service. 

In the first six months since opening in October 2009, the Supreme Court has heard 43 appeals and given 42 judgments, according to its first annual report and accounts which were published in June. 

Legal Services Ombudsman Zahida Manzoor singled out the Bar Standards Board (“BSB”) for praise in her final annual report and accounts. 

THE Bar Council, the Bar Human Rights Committee, the Commonwealth Lawyers' Association and Avocats Sans Frontières hosted the Parliamentary launch of a new report on the current state of the rule of law in Zimbabwe. 

Reform of the law of defamation became more likely following the second reading debate in the House of Lords on Lord Lester’s Defamation Bill on 9 July.

Barristers and colleagues have paid tribute to Ralph Lewis QC, head of No5 Chambers, who passed away in July after recently being diagnosed with cancer. Lewis, a personal injury and clinical negligence specialist, was called to the Bar in 1978 and took Silk in 1999

The current system of cross-examining young witnesses was the subject of a seminar chaired by Lord Justice Hooper at the Nuffield Foundation on 10 June, writes Joyce Plotnikoff.