Barristers

A Bar disciplinary tribunal has found ‘named and shamed’ barrister Tariq Rehman guilty of misconduct for a second time. In its latest ruling, the tribunal found that Mr Rehman had delayed or failed to refund fees and pay compensation awards to clients.

Barristers who outsource work must not “ask for or accept” any payment from third parties, the Bar Council has warned. However, third parties can “for commercial reasons” offer services to barristers at lower than normal rates, so long as the “entire benefit” is passed to lay clients.

The Legal Services Board has said it expects the cost of regulating lawyers to be “going down, not up” as it approved a minor increase in the cost of practising for barristers. It said barristers should be given “much greater information” about how their money is spent.

A barrister who was convicted of harassing his ex-partner with texts was last week suspended for three months by a bar tribunal for damaging the trust and confidence the public has in the profession. Peter Sefton was also sanctioned for failing to report both his conviction and subsequent six-month suspension by the Bar of Northern Ireland to the Bar Standards Board.

A leading criminal defence set that set up an alternative business structure last year has launched a military law practice that has clients being investigated by the Ministry of Defence-funded Iraq Historic Allegations Team.

Many judges are not “advocacy trainers” and may produce “subjective” evaluations under the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates scheme, solicitor-advocates have warned. The Solicitors’ Association of Higher Court Advocates said there was a danger that some judges would assess on the basis of how they would have done it.

Barristers have been warned about instructing solicitors who are charging clients more for their services than counsel themselves are charging. The Bar Council has also cautioned self-employed barristers to be careful not to enter arrangements with solicitors which inadvertently turn them into employed barristers.

Barristers are at risk of being “squeezed out of the market by a declining case load, a surfeit of barristers and increasing competition from both other regulated legal professionals as well as unregulated service providers”, the Bar Standards Board has warned.

Judges should be able to opt out of assessing advocates under the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates if they believe it would be unfair, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. Despite a Supreme Court ruling in its favour last year, QASA is still to get off the ground.

A dual-qualified employment lawyer, struck off as a solicitor last year for deceiving clients, has been disbarred for his “persistent dishonesty”. The Bar Standards Board said Jean Etienne Attala attempted to cover up the fact employment claims he was handling had been struck out.