Features

Sarah-Jane Bennett explains how the Bar Council is working to reform the criminal justice system and legal aid.  

2015 will be a year of big change for the whole of the criminal justice system. 

Mark Hatcher on the Public Accounts Committee and its devastating report into the legal aid reforms.  

The veteran Whitehall watcher, Professor Peter Hennessy who now observes the behaviour of mandarins from the cross benches in the House of Lords, once described the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) as “the queen of select committees … [which] … by its very existence exerted a cleansing effect in all government departments”. 

Joseph Giret QC and Anya Newman on boys, toys and unprecedented High Court injunctions.  

On the 1 December 2014, HHJ Owen QC sitting as a High Court judge in Birmingham granted an injunction prohibiting an activity known as Car Cruising across the entire Black Country region. 

Charlotte Proudman on prostitution, sex buyer laws and the “End Demand” campaign.  

End Demand, a new campaign to change laws relating to prostitution, was launched on 22 October 2014. 

Andrew Ford examines the use of s 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act.  

 In June 2013 a pilot scheme was announced by the Justice Secretary “to allow young and vulnerable victims to give evidence and be cross-examined before the trial starts”. 

Colin Edelman QC on professional indemnity insurance for BSB regulated entities and the threatened future of Bar Mutual.  

Self-employed barristers were first compelled to have professional indemnity insurance as a pre-condition for practice in 1980, on the basis that a responsible profession had to have regard to the interest of consumers by ensuring that consumers with valid negligence claims should not be prejudiced by the potential inability of barristers to meet judgments entered against them. 

Job title 

Barrister 

Stone Chambers is a leading set of commercial and shipping barristers, based in London and Singapore, specialising in international commercial litigation and arbitration. 

Easter Rising 1916: The Trials  

by Seán Enright 

Merrion Press £18.99 ISBN-13: 978-1908928375 

After a very successful inaugural concert earlier in the year, Andrew Clarke QC reviews the Bar Choral Society’s second concert.  

The Bar Choral Society’s second ever concert took place in Temple Church on 18 November 2014. 

Patrick Spottiswoode on the continuing connection between Shakespeare’s Globe and the Inns of Court and the planned collaborations for 2015.  

Shakespeare’s connection with the Inns of Court is well-known.