News

The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) is on course to open on 30 September for barristers undertaking criminal advocacy on the Midland and Western Circuits, following formal approval of the scheme from the Legal Services Board (LSB). 

Liberalised litigators
Self-employed barristers will be able to conduct litigation next year, following Legal Services Board approval of the new Bar Standards Board (BSB) Code of Conduct. Numerous practising restrictions will be lifted in the revised code, which forms part II of the new BSB Handbook and comes into effect on 1 January 2014. It replaces the current 8th edition of the Code of Conduct, its annexes and the Bar Training Regulations. 

The Bar of England and Wales is increasingly well represented at this Conference, which brings together more than 5,000 international practitioners. 

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Two initiatives have been announced by the Lord Chief Justice, in response to a recommendation by the Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons that there should be specific guidance and training for judges who preside over cases of child sexual exploitation. 

Profession
The quality of Crown prosecutors’ decision-making is improving, but more needs to be done to ensure cases go through court more quickly and efficiently, according to Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate. 

The summer of 2013 has seen the Bar Council welcoming a new cohort of ten young Chinese lawyers in the second year of the programme it conceived and now administers as a successor to the Lord Chancellor’s long-running training scheme. The commercially-focused BCTS programme combines a weeklong bespoke study course on English law at BPP law school with a five-week placement in a set of barrister’s chambers. The placement aims to give Chinese lawyers knowledge of the English Bar and the work barristers do, as well as equipping them with practical knowledge of how to work with them. 

The Bar Council and the Law Society will be hosting parallel seminars on International developments in the field of alternative dispute resolution and Justice in times of austerity for foreign Bar leaders and members of the Bar and Law Society. 

This event offers an excellent opportunity for barristers to meet international practitioners from the US and other jurisdictions. Over 950 international practitioners from 52 countries attended last year’s fall meeting in Miami, Florida and about 1,000 are expected to attend this meeting in London. 

10:00 at the Bar Council offices, 289-293 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7HZ.