News

The Bar Standards Board’s 2008 Annual Report is now available on the website at:
www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/news/Publications/Corporatepublications/ 

Achievements contained in the 2008 Annual Report include: 

Completion of the review of the Bar Vocational Course (BVC) under the Chairmanship of Derek Wood QC – work is now well advanced on implementation of the report’s recommendations. 

Beginning the Pupillage Review, also under Derek Wood’s chairmanship. 

The significant work done in 2008 on the implementation of the Strategic Review of Complaints that enabled us to announce completion of that programme of work in March 2009. 

The pilot Chambers’ monitoring project that was well received by the Chambers visited as part of the pilot. 

Equality and Diversity training for all Board, Committee and staff members as well as a strategy and action plan approved by the Board. 

 

Volume of “business as usual” work dealt with efficiently and effectively, such as complaints handling and applications to the Qualifications Committee

The Bar will have the opportunity to meet with a delegation of Nigerian lawyers, led by Nigerian Bar Association president Chief Oluwarotimi Akeredolu and including representatives of Nigeria's leading law firms looking to develop their networks with lawyers in the UK. Their weeklong programme will include a series of events and information sessions in London, a networking event at the Law Society, and a visit to Liverpool for a joint seminar on comparative maritime law, dispute resolution and international trade. 

The Bar Council and the Law Society held another successful programme for bar leaders from nearly 50 jurisdictions from all parts of the world in London on the occasion of the Opening of the Legal Year on 1 October. On 30 September the bar leaders held discussions on access to justice, which resulted in a powerful declaration of principles which can be found on the Bar Council website www.barcouncil.org.uk. 

The seminar was opened with an address by Lord Neuberger who reminded all present of the duty of government and other players in the legal system that the rule of law fundamentally depends on universal access to justice. The discussions made it clear that all bar leaders accept the pressure on state budget world-wide but affirmed that access to justice is as important as access to health care. The bar leaders also had an opportunity to visit the new Supreme Court on the day of its opening and to mingle with members of the profession at two social events. 

The Supreme Court was officially opened on 16 October 2009. Speaking at the ceremony, the Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw said that the new Supreme Court “mixes the old and the new, and keeps the historic balance between Parliament, government and the judiciary, the bedrock of the British constitutional settlement. But the judges will be in a new environment with all the benefits this brings – as Andrew Motion’s fine poem puts it: ‘new structures but an old foundation stone’.” (See also pp 10-12 and 14-16.) 

THE Bar Council has submitted its response to the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on Damages Based Agreements (DBAs). Costs specialist barrister Nick Bacon has led the Bar's response on the principle of permitting DBAs, particularly their use in contentious business. The Bar Council is strongly of the view that any further consideration of this fundamental question should at least await the findings of the Jackson Review, due to report later this year, and that their introduction via the Coroners and Justice Bill should be halted until this significant issue has been considered by Lord Justice Jackson. 

Former Bar Council Chairman, Geoffrey Vos QC, has been appointed a High Court Judge, assigned to the Chancery Division. Vos was called to the Bar in 1977, took Silk in 1993, and was head of chambers at 3 Stone Buildings between 1998 and May 2009. He was Chairman of the Bar Council in 2007. 

MORE than 50 bar association leaders from around the world have approved a communiqué in support of access to justice. The members of the group, which gathered in London on the occasion of the opening of the legal year, have voiced their concerns about cutbacks in funding legal services at the very time when recession has highlighted the need for access to legal advice and representation, especially for the weak and vulnerable. The bar leaders agreed: 

To renew our commitment to the fundamental principle that no one should be unable to enforce or defend a right for want of the resources necessary to obtain legal advice and representation 

To urge governments to provide adequate funding to ensure access to justice for all, regardless of means, social or ethnic background, gender or the nature of their cause. 

To encourage the members of our professions to continue to undertake fairly remunerated publicly-funded work, as well as pro bono work – recognising that the latter can never operate as a substitute for properly funded legal aid by the state. 

 

To commit ourselves, in the public interest, to work together with governments and state agencies to explore ways in which access to justice can be improved for the benefit of all including taxpayers who fund the justice systems we serve.

The Bar Standards Board has launched its Barristers’ Register. The Register is an online database displaying details of all barristers eligible to provide legal services in England and Wales. The Register can be viewed on the Board’s website at www.barstandardsboard.org.uk. 

The Register will enable enquirers to ascertain whether a particular barrister is able to offer legal services through the provision of a clear and simple display of that individual’s status and practicing details. 

Legislation is a “crude and inflexible tool” as far as protecting rights of privacy is concerned, Desmond Browne QC has warned.
Addressing a Conservative Party Conference fringe meeting, the Chairman of the Bar Council looked at the way the courts and Parliament have handled the balance between privacy rights and freedom of expression. 

“I believe that the incremental development of the law by the judges has proved to be infinitely preferable to the big bang of legislation,” he said. “I think that the case law, European and domestic, which lays down that neither the right to privacy nor that to freedom of expression has presumptive pre-eminence over the other is the right approach.” 

The new Legal Year for Winchester was opened by a Sunday Choral Matins service in Winchester Cathedral on 11 October 2009, attended by a wealth of judges, including the Honourable Mr Justice Royce and the Honourable Mr Justice Holman. There was a good turn-out by the Western Circuit Bar.