Dearing: Flexibility to hire the best
A specialist chambers of financial services barristers is filling “a gap in the market” by setting up as an alternative business structure regulated by the Bar Standards Board (BSB).
Anthony Dearing launched Temple Square Chambers with fellow director and senior clerk Stephen Broom last year, having in 2017 created Temple Consulting, which specialises in financial services compliance and risk.
Mr Dearing, who specialises in UK and European financial services regulation, is the sole shareholder and both the head of legal practice and head of finance and administration. Mr Broom manages the business and finance, and is responsible for client care.
The other barrister involved from the launch is Dr Julian Roberts. He was joined, later in 2024, by two solicitors who specialise in financial services – Ian McLaughlin and Chen-Lum Hong.
Mr Dearing said the chambers was recruiting, but there were no targets on size, with recruitment “work-driven and talent-driven”.
He said the main reason why Temple Square became an ABS was the flexibility to “hire the best” in financial services regulation, whether solicitors or barristers.
At the time of its launch, Temple Square did not employ any solicitors, which meant it could not become an ABS regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, even if it had wanted to.
“We are open to recruiting solicitors, but we have no desire to become a law firm or solicitors’ firm. We’re not looking to compete with solicitors.”
Mr Dearing said the chambers did not have staff and lawyers kept their own diaries and set their own fees, unless they were for contentious work and court appearances, when Mr Broom adopted the traditional clerking role and set them.
One of the challenges in setting up as an ABS was insurance, where “the biggest problem” was lack of understanding of a BSB-regulated ABS.
“It’s a concept that is still new for the market and so they needed a lot more time to understand what we do and how we do it and to understand that we’re not a law firm or a solicitors’ firm,” Mr Dearing explained.
“This is a new area and we think we’ve spotted a gap in the market that sits very neatly both with traditional sets of chambers and law firms, but doesn’t compete with either.”
He said Temple Square’s clients were City-based, “and if they’re not in the City, they’re offshore” and “not that used” to dealing with traditional chambers.
He believed Temple Square was the “first hybrid set of chambers at the Bar” to practise exclusively in financial services.
“We look upon ourselves as precision engineers. We’re providing a service in a way that nobody else is at the moment.”
There are only 12 active ABSs regulated by the BSB and Mr Dearing suggested this was because of the “high degree of risk involved in setting up an ABS that I suspect many barristers are not willing to take”.
He said the complexity of the BSB’s application form to become an ABS and the set-up costs were off-putting. “The Bar traditionally, certainly historically, is not a good breeding ground for business entrepreneurs. It comprises highly skilled and experienced lawyers, specialists in their chosen field, but who are never more comfortable than when immersed in a gritty point that they spend their time trying to unravel.
“To set up an ABS is very time-consuming and costly, and inherent to that process is a high degree of risk – that you spend that time and money and don’t obtain registration, or you obtain registration but then don’t obtain instructions.”
Mr Dearing said the Bar was driven by a structure “that has clerks looking for work and members clubbing together to try and find work, and it isn’t a structure that works for an ABS”.
To set up an ABS, “you have to already have a client following and that client following really needs to be of a type that is looking for a more nimble and a quicker service than they are able to get at the Bar”.
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