Features

Matthew Nicklin outlines what BSB regulation could entail for those seeking to form advocacy-focused alternative business structures, legal disciplinary practices and barrister-only entities 

The final stage of the Bar Standards Board (BSB) consultation on entity regulation –New handbook and entity regulation – closed on 28 June 2012. After working its way through the responses, a report will be published by the BSB in due course. 

Job title
Silk, Littleton Chambers

Littleton’s 52 barristers specialise in employment law and commercial litigation with additional expertise in commercial fraud, banking litigation, disciplinary and regulatory law, professional negligence, sports law and mediation.

What do you credit your success to?

Undoubtedly it would be having an extremely supportive family, a husband who understands the demands and pressures of the Bar and hard work. I have found that working with and against other barristers has been invaluable in understanding what works well and what perhaps doesn’t.

David Wurtzel casts the spotlight on a new niche legal disciplinary practice which specialises in private prosecutions for fraud and corporate crime 

Edmonds Marshall McMahon (EMM) has been operating since March 2012 in the niche area of representing clients who wish to bring private prosecutions for fraud, counterfeiting and corporate crime. At the moment they say they are the only such firm – but they do not expect things to remain that way for long. As a legal disciplinary practice (LDP), the directors consist of a solicitor (dual-qualified in Australia), a barrister who spent nine years in the Government Legal Service (GLS), and a barrister who works within the company while continuing his self-employed practice at the Bar. The company has no relationship with his chambers. 

In the second part of his feature on information security, Graham Cunningham looks at the guidelines regarding physical material.  

Last month, I wrote about your responsibilities under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA 1998), concerning electronic processing of personal information. It was designed for your protection and, most especially to avoid you having to give undertakings to the Information Commissioner or pay fines.  This month, I want to concentrate on physical material; ie, the paper in the lever arch files that makes up the average brief.   Generally speaking, the sort of physical material you get in the average brief does not come within DPA 1998. 

Dan Jones and Dominic Thomas from criminal law set, Artesian Law, explain why they have chosen to go down the ABS route 

As six members of a traditional criminal set – of between 12 and 34 years of call – it became increasingly clear to us that the chambers structure is, in many respects, out-dated, uncompromising and struggling to cope with the challenges that face us all in practice as members of the self-employed Bar. We didn’t want to get left behind as we waited for a conservative management committee, leading a large group of uncertain barristers, each with a vote as to the way forward, to catch up with events. 

Toby Craig and Charles Hale reflect on this most golden of British summers and hand out the notice-box medals 

And the winner is...

This summer will be remembered for so many years to come. Normally silly season, there were no concerns this year about being able to fill column inches. The newspapers, magazines, blogs and tweets virtually wrote themselves. 

On the 27 July, the Legal Services Board consented to a change in the Cab Rank Rule of the Bar Code of Conduct to replace the current Terms of Work with new standard contractual terms. The practical effect of the changes will be as follows: 

1. The Terms of Work on which barristers offer their services to solicitors and the Withdrawal of Credit scheme (the most common basis of instruction), as reproduced in Annexe G1 of the current Code of Conduct, together with the contractual version of those Terms at Annexe G2, will be abolished. 

Barristers in the new legal landscape must ensure they provide clients with clear advice on pricing and funding options and a clear route to redress, says Chief Legal Ombudsman, Adam Sampson 

The vernacular in legal circles has referred to a “changing” legal sector so often in recent times that the phrase has inevitably become somewhat hackneyed. Since the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA 2007) came into being, we’ve all been anticipating a big shift, one that would send us towards a full-blown commercially driven legal sector. 

What’s In a Name?

Hassan Khan and Claire Fox argue the case for same sex marriage 

The government’s proposals

In March 2012 the government published its consultation paper on equal civil marriage. The proposal is simple: same sex couples will, like opposite sex couples, be allowed to marry one another in a civil ceremony. Marriages solemnised through religious ceremony and on religious premises will only be legal between a man and a woman. The government is committed to these reforms and seeks views on how equal civil marriage should be implemented. The government’s response to the consultation is expected towards the end of 2012. 

William Hughes and Bobbie Cheema outline the raison d’être of the Kalisher Scholarship Foundation 

Cuts to the legal aid budget preceded the global banking crisis and the age of austerity, and over the past ten years the number of pupillages has nosedived, from 695 in 2000 to 450 in 2010/11. Given the increasing difficulty in securing a publicly-funded pupillage the Kalisher trustees, together with professional training outfit Jo Ouston and Co, recently ran the first Kalisher presentation skills course.