News

The Bar Standards Board will hold its second Clementi Debate on Thursday 2 April 2009, at the main hall, Inner Temple. This will be chaired by Sir David Clementi. More details about the event will appear in future editions of BSB News and on the BSB website. 

The Bar Council has produced guidance for barristers wondering how to respond to letters they receive from the Legal Services Commission about payments on account in publicly funded cases.

Panel membership will entail being part of a network of individuals (10 approx) with the relevant experience who will share views, perspectives and ideas relating to changing working practices at the Bar, post Legal Services Act. Commitment will be through occasional meetings (likely to be no more than 1 per month in 2009) and contributing to email/forum discussions/emails on issues derived from policy development in this area. Membership will not be remunerated, although there may also be opportunities to undertake discrete project work for which a daily rate (commensurate with seniority and experience) will be payable. 

If you are interested and would like to discuss this opportunity, in the first instance please write to Simon Garrod (020 7611 1414), Head of Professional Practice at the Bar Standards Board by 13 February 2008: Bar Standards Board, 289-293 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7HZ. DX: 240 LDE 

James Eadie QC, of Blackstone Chambers, has been appointed First Treasury Counsel. Eadie will join Jonathan Swift of 11KBW, handling the government’s complex civil law matters. Eadie, who was called to the Bar in 1984 and took silk last year, acted as counsel to Lord Woolf’s inquiry into BAe following the Saudi arms investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. He replaces Philip Sales QC of 11KBW.

The Personal Support Unit needs your donations. Lord Woolf presented the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of this “small but exceptional charity”, which is based in the Royal Courts of Justice, in January. It provides emotional and practical support to people who cannot afford lawyers in and around the courts. Donations can be made online at www.thepsu.co.uk/donate.

The SRA plans to commence the regulation of legal disciplinary practices (LDP) in March 2009. The consultation paper proposes that barristers should be able to join an LDP as either an employee or as a manager. 

Subject to the outcome of the consultation, the amendments to the Code necessary to enable barristers to practise as managers of LDPs will be finalised and then hopefully submitted to the Ministry of Justice for approval in June 2009. Barristers will not be able to join an LDP as a manager before then, and possibly not until the rule changes have been approved by the Ministry of Justice. However, by
this time, the regulatory powers of the SRA in relation to barrister managers should have ‘bedded down’ and the Board will have been
able to consider the views of the Bar following the consultation. But a barrister can be an employee of an LDP under and subject to the existing provisions of the Code (Part V) that apply to employed barristers generally. 

The new post of general counsel at the Serious Fraud Office has been filled by Vivian Robinson QC, of QEB Hollis Whiteman Chambers. Robinson, a fraud specialist, acted for the defence in the Blue Arrow and Blackspur Leasing trials and has prosecuted cases on behalf of the SFO.

Barristers are reminded that the CPD year ended on 31 December 2008, and they have until 31 January 2009 to submit their completed record cards. All practitioners are required to return a record card under the New or Established Practitioners Programme. Failure to comply with the CPD rules could leave practitioners liable to a £300 fine.

Keir Starmer QC, the new Director of Public Prosecutions, has pledged to engage with communities, deliver “more robust and dependable” charging decisions, and create a more transparent CPS. 

The Bar is cooperating with other interested bodies at both national and EU level to debate the implications and respond to the Commission’s 2008 proposal for an EU consumer rights directive, a horizontal measure codifying and updating 4 existing EU consumer protection directives and replacing minimum harmonisation with targeted maximum harmonisation. See: http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/08/st14/st14183.en08.pdf and http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/08/st14/st14183.en08.pdf