Profession

Lesley Bates reports on the Criminal Bar Association’s Spring Conference 

With your help, we can ensure that we are working in all our members’ interests, writes Desmond Browne QC.  

The Bar Council’s Member Services team came into existence last summer with one goal, to provide tangible benefits to the Bar and make our personal and professional lives that much easier. Already this past autumn the team has been testing the temperature to see how best they can support the Bar community. 

The Bar Council is seeking views on the introduction of contractual terms as the standard terms for barristers accepting instructions from solicitors in privately funded matters. Sarah Asplin QC explains why the current system is unsatisfactory.  

Members of the Bar will recall that the Bar Council had been negotiating with the Law Society over many, many years with a view to introducing contractual terms as the standard basis on which barristers accept instructions from solicitors. These terms would replace the present usual terms, namely “The Terms of Work on which Barristers offer their Services to Solicitors and the Withdrawal of Credit Scheme 1988” (as amended), and the rarely used 2001 contractual version of those Terms, which are replicated in Annexes G1 and G2 of the Bar Code of Conduct. 

Pupils can follow more than one path to the Bar, advises Melissa Coutino. Split pupillages enable pupils to spend time with an employer and in chambers. They can be an attractive option for all, she believes 

Pupils need to follow a single path” is a generalisation that both some self-employed and employed barristers may be culpable of making. This is not the case. Split pupillages, whereby a pupil spends time with an employer and  with chambers, can be an attractive option. They allow chambers and an employer to share their investment risk, regulatory burden and commitment to training, while benefiting from the work of a person who is keen, bright and eager to qualify.  

David Wurtzel reports on the latest development in the quality assurance assessment process for the Bar.  

This month the Joint Advocacy Group (“JAG”) is due to publish the results of its consultation on standards in advocacy. It will be closely followed by a consultation on the next stage, namely the methods of assessment. In February the Legal Services Commission (“LSC”) produced a Discussion Paper “Quality Assurance for Advocates” which confirms that they are passing the baton to the JAG along with advice, warnings and a complete report on their own experience in running a quality assurance assessment (“QAA”) pilot which was carried out by Cardiff Law School. 

A pupil gives her impression of the pupillage interview process and the insight it provides into life in chambers 

Pupillage: without a doubt the most daunting and challenging hurdle to be overcome on the long and rocky road between university and finally becoming someone’s “learned friend.” For anyone with ambitions to become a barrister the Pupillage Portal Scheme (formerly the Online Pupillage Application System (“OLPAS”)) is fraught with anxiety: either you get it right or you run the pupillage gauntlet again in 12 months time. And it was not until I started pupillage that I thought about it in any other way. Not once had I thought of the hours that it must have taken barristers at the other end to read, mark and order. It was only when I was asked, for this article, to think about the impression different chambers created to me as the interviewee—did I start to think about the whole process a little differently. 

As the pupillage interviewing season commences, a leading criminal set describes how it runs the recruitment process 

Like most chambers, our junior tenants are almost always recruited from our own pupils. Over the last 15 years, we have taken on one or more of our pupils each year. The importance to us of pupillage selection is obvious and the responsibility falls on our Pupillage Committee. 

James Sharpe discusses the stages of a Law Commission project from start to finish 

Although many are aware of the work of the Law Commission (“the Commission”), fewer may be aware of the stages of a Commission project and how its recommendations fit into the overall process of law reform. This article offers an insight by taking the example of the Commission’s Report, “Children: Their Non-Accidental Death or Serious Injury (Criminal Trials)” (Law Com No 279) which was implemented via ss 5 and 6 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. This introduced the offence of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult. 

Belle Turner reports on the recent YBS seminar “All Change? Or not? For the Young Bar”.  

At this time of great change at the Bar there is some concern as to whether young barristers at a grassroots level are engaged with the potentially career-changing decisions that senior members of chambers may be taking on behalf of their members. There is no small irony that, as a young barrister in a set wishing to become a Legal Disciplinary Practice (“LDP”), for example, the senior members of chambers may profit considerably from the work of the juniors for many years before the juniors themselves benefit. There is a sense in many of the emails which I receive that this wasn’t what people signed up for. 

The BSB has recently published a consultation paper on its proposals for revisions to barristers’ practising arrangements. Charles Hollander QC and Sarah Brown outline the key themes and explore the challenges ahead.  

The Legal Services Act 2007 (“the Act”) introduces into the regulatory arena the principle of authorisation to practise. In terms of the Bar, this requires new procedures which build upon and extend the current practising certificate regime. The Bar Standards Board (“BSB”) has recently issued a consultation paper on its proposals for authorisation to practise arrangements.