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David Wolfe QC of Matrix Chambers argues: We will never get close to having an “independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession” (which section 1 of the Legal Services Act 2007 sets as a regulatory objective for the regulators) if advocates providing a high-quality service to their clients remain undermined by others who are not even competent. Let’s not fool ourselves: we all know lawyers – including barristers, and including criminal advocates – who are just not up to it (perhaps they never were, perhaps they have lost their touch) at all levels, from magistrates’ court practitioners to QCs.

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.

Criminal barristers are preparing to boycott the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA), but only if there is a pledge from counsel outside those circuits affected first not to step in and take the work.

The Bar Standards Board chair’s description of opponents of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates as “a noisy minority of dissenters” received an immediate high-powered response from criminal law barristers.

In an exclusive blog for this website, Baroness Ruth Deech, chair of the Bar Standards Board, addresses the increasingly strident criticism from criminal law barristers about the impending Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA).