News

The Law Reform Committee essay competition 2012 was won by Jeremy Goldsmith with his essay “The Frustration of Genuine Wills’: Time for a Dispensing Power?”. Second place went to Sam Jacobs for his entry “Me and Mr Jones: Advocating Time Limits for Immigration Detention”. There were two highly commended prizes awarded to Yvonne Kramo for her entry “The Illusory Right to Liberty: Improving Access to Immigration Bail“ and Vivian Siew for her entry “Human Rights in the Context of Community Care: Moving Beyond Patchwork Reform”. The winner of the CPE category was Clementine Maddock with her entry “Are Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Protecting Vulnerable Adults? The Case for Reform”, and the runner-up CPE entry went to Mek Mesfin for his essay entitled: “The Case for Compulsory Prior Notification in Privacy Cases”. 

Judiciary
Lord Judge, Lord Chief Justice, has announced that he will continue in office until the end of September 2013, when he will retire. He has written to the Lord Chancellor to inform him of his decision. 

On the 31 January 2013, the commonly used terms of engagement for barristers taking instructions from solicitors, namely the Terms of Work and the Withdrawal of Credit Scheme (in Annexe G1 and G2 of the Bar Code of Conduct) will be abolished. On the 31 January, the Bar Code of Conduct will be amended so that the Cab Rank Rule applies to instructions offered on the basis of new Contractual Terms or the barrister’s own published terms of engagement. This means that instead of the Cab Rank Rule applying to the present Terms of Work, it will apply to these new Contractual Terms or the barrister’s own published terms. 

Criminal
Senior judges have rejected the need for additional sanctions for disclosure failures in criminal trials. 

Civil
The long-term decline in the number of civil disputes coming to trial could corrode both respect for, and compliance with, legal obligations and responsibilities, according to UCL Dean of Laws, Professor Dame Hazel Genn. 

The BSB is undertaking a ‘progress check’ with a sample of 40 chambers to commence in February 2013 in order to understand the extent to which the profession is engaging with the new equality and diversity rules and to identify any areas of challenge for individuals and chambers. 

Representatives of the International Committee visited Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro last October, to coincide with the visit by the Lord Mayor of London. 

Wednesday 19 December 2012  

18:00  

The Bar Standards Board is able to accept CPD record cards in batches from chambers/organisations. 

The BSB will be conducting an exercise on a representative sample of 40 chambers in February 2013 to understand the level of engagement with the new equality rules of the Code of Conduct and to identify any areas of difficulty in compliance. The exercise will consist of a telephone call from the BSB Equality Team to the chambers concerned during which compliance and engagement with the new equality rules will be discussed. The discussion will give the chambers selected an opportunity to raise any issues or challenges faced during implementation and offer feedback on how these might be resolved. The results of the exercise will feed into a final report which will set out any areas for further BSB guidance or initiatives to support the profession in implementing the rules.