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Silk, 2 Bedford Row 

2 Bedford Row is one of the country’s leading criminal and regulatory sets specialising in high profile fraud and murder cases, health and safety and professional disciplinary proceedings. 

A strike or not a strike? That is the question.  

Everybody has returned from the seasonal festivities absent the traditional good cheer. The clerks have “accidentally” discovered a working party report from a sub-committee chaired by one or other of the brothers Twist – a committee that I have to confess I had no idea I had appointed and probably never did – that has recommended our staff take the same pay cut proposed for us by a Ministry of Justice that increasingly looks better equipped to be engaged in the used-car trade. 

Toby Craig reflects on the life of Nelson Mandela and his contribution to the political landscape.  

In a pithy sentence, Barack Obama masterfully captured the essence of Nelson Mandela’s influence on global politics. The ability of political leaders in a few short words to capture a mood, to shape and influence thoughts and to change the destiny of nations sometimes seems a lost and forgotten art. In a year that saw the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech and the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of one of the greatest orators of the twentieth century, John F Kennedy, it ended up being a year which will be rightly remembered for the death of another great leader of our times who understood better than most the enormous power of language. 

David Wurtzel talks to Nicholas Lavender QC, incoming Chairman of the Bar, about his new role and his plans for his year in office.  

When I asked the 2014 Chairman of the Bar Council, Nicholas Lavender QC, why he wanted to be Chairman, he said, “For me, it was the culmination of a career involved in Bar politics.” He has combined this career with a busy practice in commercial work in which he specialises in actions for and against banks in negligent advice cases. As a former Chairman of the Professional Practice Committee, there can be few who better understand the ethical issues which face the profession. Noting that he is a member of the Yorkshire County Cricket Club and of the MCC, it would be fair to say that both literally and metaphorically, he plays with a straight bat. 

David Nolan SC and Mark Mulholland QC report for Counsel on the First Joint Meeting of the General Council of the Bar of Ireland & the Bar Council of Northern Ireland  

"May I add to my farewell my hope and prayer that the Bar of Ireland whatever may befall, hitherto united as one body, inspired with fraternal loyalty to their fellows will continue to transmit their fine traditions, and that Bar and Bench together will never fail to preserve and uphold the lofty standard of their predecessors, so honoured by us all for learning, independence and courage.” (Bencher’s Minute Book 1917 – 1928 p 135. 13 April 1921). 

From the beginning of January 2014 barristers will take control of their own Continuing Professional Development. Oliver Hanmer explains the new system and examines the effect of this small but important change on the working lives of barristers.  

A seemingly small but strikingly significant change to barristers’ working lives happened this month. Amid the flurry of activity that the New Year brings, barristers will be forgiven for failing to notice a real break with an annual tradition. This year, for the first time, no-one will have received the regulator’s reminder for barristers to complete and return their Continuing Professional Development cards. And that is because, this year, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) is not requiring barristers to send them in for inspection. 

In his final Court of Appeal judgment as Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge gave significant guidance to counsel on how to conduct a criminal trial. David Wurtzel explains  

At the very moment that the Operation Chalice trial was taking place in Stafford, over in Manchester another trial, equally worrying in terms of advocacy, was underway. R v Farooqi and others [2013] EWCA Crim 1649 concerned a trial of four men charged on a 10-count indictment alleging terrorism and soliciting to murder. 

Just because a witness has lied once does not mean they will always be lying, argues Deborah Gould, who explains the new Guidelines issued after the collapse of the Stafford Case  

In May 2011 the trial of Operation Chalice began at Stafford Crown Court only to collapse 16 weeks later. The first of a string of similar multi-handed trials, the indictment charged counts of sexual abuse, traffi cking, “grooming” and prostitution of numerous teenage girls. 

Thomas Ogg explains how to navigate the route safely.  

Not many barristers have opened a Free School, but I’m one of them: I’m chair of governors of the East London Science School, which opened in September 2013. Consequently, I have a good idea of the potential legal pitfalls of setting up a free school, and the extent to which this will generate work for lawyers. 

Dexter Dias QC examines the lessons the UK can learn from US mass incarceration and prison education.  

The cull, when it finally came, was brutal. With a single stroke of his pen, Bill Clinton both signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act 1994 and eviscerated US prison education, cutting off the $200 million “Pell Grants” that funded it. Within a year, from there being 350 educational programmes in America’s penal institutions, there were less than a dozen.