David Wurtzel

18 June saw a Bar Council sponsored Legal Aid Question Time being held at Church House to discuss the Government’s consultation paper. Counsel’s David Wurtzel was there

After 16,000 responses were sent to the Ministry of Justice, was there anything left to say about the Government’s consultation paper, Transforming Legal Aid: delivering a more credible and efficient system? Apparently so, as the Bar Council sponsored Legal Aid Question Time at Church House in London on 18 June. A panel consisting of Maura McGowan QC, Chairman of the Bar, Lord McNally, Minister of State in charge of Legal Aid, Andy Slaughter MP, Shadow Minister for Legal Aid, and Steve Hynes of the Legal Action Group, was deftly chaired by Joshua Rozenberg. In the hour’s session, he made sure that all the speakers had a chance to give their views and where appropriate to have a right of reply. Succinctness was duly rewarded. In the audience were lawyers, journalists, civil servants and students, joined by a wider audience following it live on Twitter.

David Wurtzel and Professor Penny Cooper examine how to ensure the effective participation of vulnerable defendants in a trial

On 12 October 2010, Jordan Dixon, along with two co-defendants, was convicted of murder following a trial at the Old Bailey. A year before, on Halloween, Dixon and the two others came across a young man and his girlfriend in a town centre. One of the other defendants took part of the woman’s Halloween costume, stamped on it, and then spat. When her partner remonstrated, he was punched to the ground where he was kicked in the head. He died shortly afterward. All three defendants landed a blow; medical evidence could not establish who had been responsible for the fatal one. The most compelling evidence at trial came from the CCTV images which were played repeatedly. The jury found all three guilty on a joint enterprise basis. When the matter came before the Court of Appeal in March 2013, Dixon’s appeal against conviction was upheld (R v Dixon [2013] EWCA Crim 465). The real legal interest in the decision though concerns the question of the effective participation in his trial of a vulnerable defendant and of the value of a Ground Rules Hearing. The authors attended the appeal.

David Wurtzel considers the results of the Bar Council’s 2012 “Bar Barometer”.

‘The Bar will shrink’ has been a common cry of alarm over a number of years. First, the Bar lost its monopoly over the rights of audience in the Higher Courts, then solicitor advocates entered the market in force and then Legal Aid declined, student debt rose and the number of pupillages dwindled. And yet, according the 2012 Bar Barometer, the self-employed Bar as a whole has instead expanded. Using the latest statistics available, between 2010 and 2011 the largest increase (1.2%) in the previous five years took place. At the same time, the proportion of women and of BME barristers has steadily if slowly gone up.

Counsel’s David Wurtzel interviews the incoming Chairman of the Bar, Maura McGowan QC, about her new role

The first question I asked the 2013 Chairman of the Bar, is why she wanted to be chairman. Maura McGowan QC’s answer was a modest one. It is a good idea to have a change between civil and publicly funded practitioners, and it is good that “every so often” a woman does the job. It is in fact 15 years since the first woman chairman, Heather (now Lady Justice) Hallett. Maura adds, “I’d like to think I would make things better”.

This year’s Bar Conference took place on 10th November. Counsel editorial board members Toby Craig, Nichola Higgins, Chris McWatters and David Wurtzel report

Reaching the Tip of the Pyramid
Toby Craig reviews Lady Justice Rafferty’s keynote speech and the Chairman’s annual address

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single professional in possession of a good practice must be in want of a better one.” Alluding to Austen, so opened Lady Justice Rafferty’s hugely well received keynote address to the 27th Annual Bar Conference.

David Wurtzel on listening to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in a panel discussion on the rule of law organised by the LSE and the Burma Justice Committee.

‘We cannot escape from the rule of law’, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi stated when taking part in a ‘roundtable discussion’ in a packed Peacock Theatre on June 19, during her historic visit to the United Kingdom. She was one of the six people who appeared on the panel and what she had to say was heard last. ‘I will listen’ she declared at the beginning.

The annual Kalisher Fund evening took place in May, playing to a packed audience in Middle Temple Hall. Counsel’s David Wurtzel was there Barristers are justly proud of the pro bono work they do to support new entrants at the Bar. Likewise, our colleagues in the acting profession have generously donated their time in the cause of raising money to help young lawyers whose fictional counterparts they have sometimes played.

These are the inspirations behind the annual “Kalisher Event” which this year took place on May 20, when a packed audience gathered in Middle Temple Hall. They were treated to a performance of ‘Murder on Air’, a double bill of Agatha Christie radio plays.

David Wurtzel reports on the first meeting of the Middle Temple Women’s Forum

The recent survey Barristers’ Working Lives – released by the Bar Council and the Bar Standards Board – asked self-employed practitioners why they were working at the Bar. The respondents were provided with many choices from which a number could be ticked. Only 2% selected “work life balance (control over)”.  This fact, long felt but now starkly evidenced, was one of the underlying themes behind the decision to establish the Middle Temple Women’s Forum which gathered together in Middle Temple Hall for the first time on 6 March, 48 hours before International Women’s Day. Whether or not there were, as estimated, more women in Hall than there had been since 1570, the attendance of some 300 was an impressive turn-out. They included members of all Inns, women of all calls, judges, representatives from the Bar Standards Board and other bodies, the chairman of the Bar and the Lord Chief Justice.

David Wurtzel looks at the results of the Bar’s recent survey of the working lives of those at the Bar and sees what patterns have emerged.

Who is a barrister? There are 15,000 potential answers to this question but a more focused one will be found in the fascinating and reader-friendly ‘Barristers’ Working Lives’, a biennial survey of the Bar carried out in 2011 by Employment Research Ltd and the Institute for Employment Studies and released in January. Nearly 3000 barristers answered the survey which is deemed to be a good representation of the population.

Shape the future or become the past

The Chairman of the Bar, Peter Lodder QC, told Bar Conference delegates that they needed to shape the future or risk becoming the past in a lively opening plenary session.

The Chair of the 26th Annual Bar Conference, Taryn Lee, kicked off proceedings (for the second year at London’s Hilton Metropole Hotel), by introducing the day’s theme - ‘Shaping the future: a modern Bar for a modern market’. She encouraged the record 650 plus in attendance to focus on the strengths of the profession as they consider developing their practices. She outlined the format for the day, including encouraging modern-minded technophiles to tweet throughout the conference, which proved particularly popular. It also meant those not attending could keep track of what was going on, whether in plenary sessions or in workshops. Barristers, journalists, sponsors, and even humble PR professionals were getting in on the act. The Conference Chair even made time for a tweet or two.