Barristers

It is important that government plans to enhance the quality of criminal defence advocacy in publicly funded cases “should not be designed around one particular professional group”, the Legal Services Board has warned. The comments can be read as coded concern that some of the proposals seem weighted in favour of barristers.

A barrister convicted by a magistrates’ court of failing to get licenses for his taxi firm has been fined £600 by the Bar Standards Board. Ahtiq Raja was sole director of taxi firm Call a Cab Limited. Until last month, he was based at 9 King’s Bench Walk.

The present model for delivering justice in the criminal, family and immigration courts has become “increasingly challenged” and “many parts of the Bar are in severe pain”, the chair of the Bar Standards Board has said. Sir Andrew Burns said he wanted the BSB to become much more of a risk-based regulator.

The Ministry of Justice today laid out plans for a statutory ban on solicitors seeking referral fees from advocates in publicly funded criminal cases – even though it admitted that the evidence for the move was “largely anecdotal” – alongside another quality scheme for criminal defence advocates.

A barristers’ chambers is set to launch an alternative business structure to help it obtain international work, because it will give the appearance of a solicitors’ firm to foreign clients who do not understand direct access.

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has been discharged from an undertaking it gave nearly two years ago to deal with concerns over the way it dealt with changes to the cab-rank rule. But in doing so, the Legal Services Board said it had continuing misgivings that have “directed our attention towards the BSB’s approach to regulation more broadly”.

Regulation accounts for between 15% and 23% of the costs of law firms, money they would generally not bother spending if they were not required to, an indicative study by the Legal Services Board has found. However, the opposite was the case for lawyers practising as individuals.

The Visitors of the Inns of Court have thrown out appeals by a barrister against three disciplinary tribunal rulings, including one which disbarred him for seeking an adjournment of his case on grounds of ill-health, although he was found conducting a trial just days later.

The needs of employed barristers should not be ignored and “second class citizenship” should “by now be a myth”, a former Crown prosecutor has said. Karen Squibb-Williams argued that specialist training should be introduced for employed barristers, including “persuasive advocacy” which could be used in the boardroom as much as the court.

A barrister and solicitor have chosen the Bar Standards Board (BSB) to regulate their niche firm that specialises in defending teachers and other professionals in disciplinary actions. It is understood to be the first firm consisting of a barrister and solicitor to become a BSB entity.