News

The BSB has issued its preliminary Strategy for 2010-2012 and Business Plan for 2010. The Plan involved a significant amount of thinking and planning. The BSB Chair, Baroness Deech, states in the publication: 

Paintings by the late Law Lord, Lord Pearce of Sweethaws, are part of a selling exhibition at James Harvey British Art, 15 Langton Street, London, from 9 to 18 June  2010. Lord Pearce, who specialised in seascapes and landscapes, achieved success in painting as well as in the law.

Care applications have reached record levels, according to figures released by Cafcass, the organisation that looks after children in the family courts.

At the end of 2009 the European Council adopted the Stockholm Programme, the EU’s 5-year Justice Liberty and Security work programme, to run from 2010 to 2014. 

A self-certification was completed by the BSB and Bar Council and submitted to the Legal Services Board on 30 April 2010. This confirmed the new working arrangements and was accompanied by all of the new documentation on structure. 

THE Bar Council, the Approved Regulator for barristers in England and Wales, has begun a three-month consultation on new terms of engagement of barristers for solicitors. The move comes as the profession looks to update the current basis on which barristers take instructions from solicitors, which is viewed as outdated and unsatisfactory. 

In response to a growing demand for Equality and Diversity Awareness Training, and to the recommendation for such training in the Neuberger Report on Entry to the Bar, the Bar Council Equality and Diversity Committee has produced a diversity training toolkit and, with assistance from the Inns, is cascading the diversity training programme to all barristers. The toolkit training is particularly relevant to chambers’ Equal Opportunity Officers and others responsible for implementing the Equality and Diversity Code in Chambers. 

THE Bar Council of England and Wales, has launched a model for new business structures for the Bar, dubbed ‘ProcureCo’. This follows historic rule changes made by the Bar’s independent regulatory arm, the Bar Standards Board (BSB), which gave barristers the ability to provide their services in different ways and to structure themselves in ways which had previously been prohibited. 

The EP is making progress on its analysis of the 2008 proposal for a Consumer Rights Directive (2008/0196/COD). 

NEXT MEETING: 

Saturday 12 June 2010 at 9.30am
Followed by the AGM at 10.30am 

The meeting will be held at the Bar Council offices, 289-293 High Holborn, London, WV1V 7HZ 

There will also be a meeting regarding Criminal Legal Aid
Fees on this date at 1.00pm, see page viii for full details.