David Wurtzel

Counsel’s David Wurtzel interviewed Chair of the BSB, Baroness Deech, and Vice Chair, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC soon after their appointment. Three years into the posts, he interviews them again …

Meeting with Baroness Deech, Chair of the Bar Standards Board, and Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, Vice Chair, was an opportunity to take stock as they reached the way point of three years in post. I had interviewed each of them early in 2009. The Bar had just discovered that it had a BSB Chair who understood how to talk to barristers - indeed she still gives a report at every Bar Council meeting. Back in 2009, Baroness Deech had said, “the Bar is going through hard times, many sections are worried about legal aid”. That much has not changed...

October saw consultant editor of Counsel, David Wurtzel, interviewing incoming Chairman of the Bar Council, Michael Todd QC, about his plans for the role he was about to take on.

“What I would like to see is a meritocracy. What I would like to see is the opportunity for people who have the ability to come to the Bar,” is how Michael Todd QC, the new chairman of the Bar, describes his personal vision. His own career is a perfect example. He comes from a family where there were no lawyers. His father spent most of his working life in a factory as a machine tool engineer, “but a brilliant one”.

Christopher Stephens, the new Chairman  of the Judical Appointments Commission, talks to Counsel’s David Wurzel about the Commission’s aims and his role.

“I arrived knowing very little in February”, Christopher Stephens, the new Chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission (the “JAC”) confessed when I met him in September. Since then, he says, “I have learned my way through your profession”. He did however have a head start in respect of recommending people for appointments:  before becoming a Civil Service Commissioner and a member of the Senior Salaries Review Board he spent 30 years in Human Resources.

Law and Peace
by Tim Kevan
Bloomsbury, May 2011
£11.99 pp320

In the 1920’s, the Law Journal published a series of character-sketches of lawyers under the pseudonym “O”. These vignettes were eventually published as Forensic Fables and the author unveiled as Theo Mathew, son of Lord Justice Mathew and himself a Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn. The enduring popularity of Forensic Fables came from its recognisable and often affectionate caricatures. It is in this tradition that Tim Kevan gives us Law and Peace, the latest instalment in his BabyBarista series.

David Wurtzel reviews the law at work on stage in Inner Temple and out of the back of a Lincoln sedan in LA, Hollywood style…

MURDER MOST FOUL OR LIBEL MOST VILE,
Inner Temple, 28 and 29 March 2011
Sponsored by Charles Stanley

Responding to a request from their Treasurer, Lady Justice Hallett, for an historical play, Murder Most Foul or Libel Most Vile was performed in Inner Temple in March. This is a highly intelligent piece, packed with historic and political detail and which can best be enjoyed by those who know their early Elizabethan history well.

David Wurtzel talks to Peter Moffat, the screenwriter of the new BBC series Silk.

Had he remained at the Bar, Peter Moffat at 48 might now be considering an application for Silk. Instead the BBC is screening his six-part series called Silk, about two 30-something barristers who have reached that turning point in their careers. Moffat is probably the most prolific screenwriter of criminal justice dramas and has two BAFTAs to attest to his success.

The aim of the BSB’s new chambers’ monitoring scheme is to help chambers comply with their regulatory requirements. Sam Stein QC and Oliver Hanmer talk to David Wurtzel about the issues raised so far.

Sam Stein QC, Chairman of the Quality Assurance Committee of the Bar Standards Board (“BSB”) since January 2010, sees his role as one in which he is helping the Bar by enabling it to comply with the world of modern regulation.

The new Chairman of the Bar Council intends to pass on to his successor a Bar which has got through the difficulties and is ready to flourish, finds David Wurtzel.

If every elected leader needs a “narrative”, then Peter Lodder QC, the new Chairman of the Bar, has one and it is straightforward: “Perhaps because I have been fortunate in my own career, I am an optimist and I continue to be an optimist. I intend to pass on to my successor a Bar which has got through the difficulties and is ready to flourish.” As for those seeking to enter the profession, it is imperative “to make sure there is a good, successful future for them. There was one for me when I came to the Bar; there should be one for them. It is something I hold dearly.”

The Conference proceedings were described as the showcase of our branch of the profession, reports David Wurtzel

Opening Keynote and Plenary

Opening the 25th annual Bar conference the Conference Chairwoman, Kim Hollis QC called the proceedings “the showcase of our branch of the profession”. She then laid down her challenge: “My objective is that by the time you leave, each of you is thinking laterally about your future.” Having asserted that there are things such as access to justice on which we will not compromise (core values), she held out the prospect that there was a huge global marketplace out there (opportunity).

There are lessons for the Bar in this musical, believes David Wurtzel.

Legally Blonde (Savoy Theatre) proves that good new musicals can still be written. They can also be performed by your favourite television stars who are indeed able to sing, dance and do dialogue (with occasional breathlessness) on stage. The combination is perfect: the women steal the show, the men provide the eye candy and the audience, who greet it with remarkable knowingness, gives it a standing ovation. You do not have to have seen the movie and I suspect that I am glad that I didn’t. It is easier to suspend disbelief in a theatre than in the cinema. Legally Blonde belongs in a theatre. Luckily, the entire cast led by Sheridan Smith with wonderful star quality and timing, plays it straight, though with gays, a lesbian and sexual harassment, straight may not be quite the word.