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The Legal Services Board has put obstacles in the way of lawyers trying to practise “well and honestly” rather than improving standards, the chairman of the Bar Council told barristers on Saturday.

The Legal Services Board’s initial probe into the independent regulation of barristers uncovered “a number of concerns about the Bar Council’s and the Bar Standards Board’s behaviour at both junior and senior executive as well as board level”, it has emerged.

The row over Legal Services Board-commissioned research that recommended removal of the cab-rank rule stepped up a further notch yesterday after one of the academics who conducted it hit back at the critiques published by the Bar Council and Bar Standards Board.

Barristers can now speak to the press about their cases, after the Bar’s Code of Conduct was changed. The end to the rule prohibiting barristers from expressing personal opinion publicly in relation to their work finally brings them in line with solicitor-advocates.

Barristers yesterday launched a two-pronged assault on a controversial academic report recommending that the cab rank rule be removed from the Bar Code of Conduct, with twin assessments by high-powered silks contradicting its findings.