Profession

Chief Legal Ombudsman, Adam Sampson, provides guidance on how barristers can best avoid complaints about costs. 

You’ll have heard a lot about new financial models for barristers. The topic seems to be the common theme of most journals at the moment. The thrust of it all I agree with; a decent standard of financial literacy seems fundamental to making sure the legal profession keeps pace with its more commercially minded cousins, especially if, as we are all regularly told, consumers are expecting more and becoming increasingly savvy. 

The Supreme Court is getting sporty in the run-up to the Olympics with a unique exhibition charting the history of the Games and the law. The exhibition, “Playing by the Rules”, will include memorabilia from the 1908 and 1948 London Olympics as well as interactive displays, panels and interesting artefacts.  

Ethics, anti-doping, branding, commercialisation and the role of the Court of Arbitration for Sport are all issues tackled by the free exhibition, which is open to the public from July, a week before the Olympics begin, until the end of September. 

Having spent eighteen months examining the family justice system, the Family Justice Review, chaired by David Norgrove, reported their findings in November 2011. Stephen Cobb QC, Chairman of the Family Law Bar Association 2010-2011, studies the Government’s response. 

The creation of a Unified Family Court, a new Family Justice Board, together with significant changes to family law legislation, supporting regulations, and practice/procedure in the family courts, particularly in the field of public law, are all signposted by the Government’s response to the final report, issued last November, of the Family Justice Review (FJR). These obvious changes to the family law landscape are expected to be eased along by what may and indeed will need to be a cultural change to the delivery of family justice. 

As protestors from outside St Paul’s Cathedral are evicted, John Cooper QC, counsel for “Occupy”, considers the law surrounding the case 

The legal importance of the judgment in The Mayor, Commonality and Citizens of the City of London v Tammy Samede and Others, should not be underestimated.  In the context of the international ‘Occupy’ movement, it  ‘lit the blue touch paper’ in what is going to be an ongoing development of the law of public protest and how it is reacting to new forms of demonstration. On 13 February 2012, the case continued in the Court of Appeal, before the Master of the Rolls, as Occupy argued that the decision at first instance granted disproportionate relief to the City and failed to take appropriate regard to the appellants’ Article 10 freedom of speech and Article 11 freedom of association rights (under the ECHR). 

Deveral Capps examines the largest review of legal education for 40 years 

It has been over 40 years since legal education as a whole was reviewed in England and Wales. In 1971, the Ormrod review investigated the relationship between the legal profession and universities and considered how lawyers should be trained. The review took three years to complete and has, by and large, led to the system of legal education that we have today. Since then, large-scale reviews of the law, legal practice and legal training have taken place, though these have focused more on the practise of law rather than the training of lawyers. For example in 1979 the Benson Report, or more formally the Royal Commission on Legal Services, gave rise to the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 and in 2004, the Clementi Review led to the Courts and Legal Services Act 2007. 

District Judge Nicholas Crichton has been described as “a family justice pioneer.” With funding for the Family Drug and Alcohol Court pilot scheme due to end on 31 March, he talks to Ffyon Reilly about its future.  

Nicholas Crichton has been the resident district judge at the Inner London Family Proceedings Court since 1997 and a district judge for 25 years. He chairs the Voice of the Child sub-committee of the Family Justice Council. He has worked internationally on various projects in the field of child protection, most notably in Bulgaria where he has visited all 28 family courts and visited many specialist institutions. He is a passionate advocate for children’s rights and was the driving force behind the setting up of the award winning Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) in 2008. I spoke with him at court early in January when the issue of future funding for FDAC was uncertain. 

Dr Sarah Krähenbühl explains what psychological expert witnesses can and cannot do in respect to children’s testimony

One police interview video shows a girl, 5 years old, who refuses to sit still, chatters happily and only occasionally answers the questions asked; another shows an older boy who answers in monosyllables and displays no emotion throughout the interview. In both videos, the interviewers do their best; they continue asking questions, try alternative techniques, remain patient but are clearly aware of the limited time available… 

David Wurtzel looks at the results of the Bar’s recent survey of the working lives of those at the Bar and sees what patterns have emerged.  

Who is a barrister? There are 15,000 potential answers to this question but a more focused one will be found in the fascinating and reader-friendly ‘Barristers’ Working Lives’, a biennial survey of the Bar carried out in 2011 by Employment Research Ltd and the Institute for Employment Studies and released in January. Nearly 3000 barristers answered the survey which is deemed to be a good representation of the population. 

Having witnessed the assessment process for the CPS Advocacy Panels, Ian Wade QC reveals what he saw and asks, “Did the CPS make the grade?”  

As the Criminal Bar faces unending tribulation, here came yet more you didn’t want – Crown Prosecution Service grading.  Following the 2009 HMCPSi report, from which neither “in-house” nor external advocates emerged with a clean bill of health, the Director of Public Prosecutions declared a commitment to improved advocacy. The inspectorate recommended a unified system of grading for all prosecution advocates, so a new assessment regime became inevitable. For many self employed advocates the brave new world of competency based and evidence tested rigour has not hitherto touched their lives, and sadly this was a block waiting to be stumbled over. Many highly competent, well regarded advocates did not get the Level they applied for, and may be perplexed at the outcome. Too often they had only themselves to blame. Simply asserting, “I am a great barrister” no longer cuts the mustard. 

Stephen Akinsanya explains how some lateral thinking - and an ipad2 - saved the day, time and money in a criminal court . 

It was the moment that every defence counsel dreads; a returned trial on a Friday and the discovery, as you read the brief, that a key defence witness was a Lance Corporal serving with the Royal Lancashire Regiment who had been flown to Cyprus prior to taking up duties in Afghanistan.