Barristers

HM Courts and Tribunals Service has launched a new consultation on flexible operating hours pilots which accepts the possibility that extending the hours of courts, although desirable, might not be possible. It presented a range of options to be trialled, including double shifts and mixed Crown Court and magistrates’ court sittings.

A barrister currently serving a suspension for conducting litigation without authorisation has now received a hefty fine for failing to attend an Upper Tribunal hearing without good reason. He was fined £5,000 by a Bar disciplinary tribunal – a large sum by its standards, although a tenth of the maximum it can fine – for failing to act in the best interests of his client.

A barrister whose charity, regulated as a law firm by the Bar Standards Board (BSB), was dissolved at the end of last year due to funding problems, has set up both a conventional BSB firm and a pioneering university law project to help immigration detainees.

The Bar Council has strongly attacked a plan by the Bar Standards Board for the compulsory registration of youth court advocates, the first scheme of its type. It said the move did not address the “underlying issues of low pay and status” in the youth courts and risked deterring barristers from undertaking the work.

The Bar Council has closed its flagship nursery scheme at Smithfield in the City of London, citing a lack of places and promising to find other, “more effective” ways of supporting barristers with childcare responsibilities. The Bar Nursery – five years in the making – was launched to some fanfare in April 2013.

Female barristers need to actively encourage and mentor the next generation of women at the Bar amid the continuing difficulties of achieving equality, a leading silk said last week. Jo Delahunty QC said it was the responsibility of those who have climbed the ladder “to lean down to offer a hand for others to hold as they try and climb up”.

The Bar Standards Board is to consult on removing the rule that allows one person to veto their chambers reporting anonymised data on the sexual orientation, religion and belief of all members, in a move it said was supported by LGBT+ members of the Bar.

A drastic reduction in the role of the Inns of Court in the training of barristers – to the point where barristers would not have to be members of one – and an end to the required period of 12 months for pupillages are on the table as the Bar Standards Board takes the next step in its Future Bar Training initiative.

The Legal Services Board has marked as “sufficient” action plans produced by legal regulators to introduce price transparency and release other information to the public to help with purchasing decisions. The verdict on the original action plans published at the end of June came in the wake of the regulators moving to the next stage of consulting on how they would implement transparency.

The Bar Standards Board will say today that new rules on publishing prices should extend to referral barristers as well as those handling public access work. It comes as the Council for Licensed Conveyancers also issued their plans for improving transparency to help the consumers of legal services.