Tag Results

The Legal Services Board (LSB), Law Society and Bar Council have thrown their weight behind a best practice code aimed at stamping out bias in granting internships and improving social mobility for disadvantaged students. Meanwhile, LSB chairman David Edmonds has criticised the idea of restricting access to training to deal with the oversupply of bar students.

Our regular round-up of developments you need to know about includes a call for advice on voluntary quality schemes, the opening up of the legal market in Korea, the College of Law’s fast-track LPC, the continuing fight over the scope of legal professional privilege, CQS hitting 200 firms and much more.

There has been a rise in the number of female QCs, but a massive mismatch with the number of women at the Bar remains, figures released today have shown. The “Bar Barometer also shows the extreme difficulties black and minority ethnic (BME) students have in securing pupillages.

The government is encouraging barristers to proceed “full steam ahead” with plans to compete with solicitors’ firms for legal aid block contracts, it has emerged. Peter Lodder, chairman of the Bar Council, also revealed that a government consultation on competitive tendering for legal aid contracts could be launched as early as the end of May.

The Law Society and Bar Council are among a group of professional bodies which are coming together to improve public and stakeholder appreciation of the contribution made by professionals to society, Legal Futures can reveal. The group – called Professions 4 Good – is to make social mobility and fair access to the professions the priority issue for its initial campaign work when it formally launches in a few weeks’ time.