Practice Toolset

Alexander Gunning QC examines the COMBAR/CLLS terms and considers the basis of assumption of liablities.  

It is around eighteen months since a combination of regulatory changes resulted in barristers commonly contracting with solicitors for the provision of their services. Opinions remain divided over whether the switch to contracting has been to the benefit of the Bar. In this article I provide a brief description of the COMBAR/CLLS terms and address two of their more important aspects: the basis for payment and the assumption of liabilities. 

John G Browning takes a brief look at judges’ activities on social media and how this issue is being controlled in the United States.  

The issue of judges blogging, tweeting, and posting on Facebook and other social networking sites is a controversial subject that transcends international borders. Here in the United Kingdom, of course, guidelines adopted in 2012 ban judicial office holders from such activities in order to avoid damaging “public confidence in their own impartiality or in the judiciary in general”. 

The recent “Victims’ Law” proposals by Sir Keir Starmer QC throw up the suggestion of judge as inquisitor and challenge our adversarial system. Professor Penny Cooper enters the debate and questions whether judges could or should cross-examine vulnerable witnesses.The recent “Victims’ Law” proposals by Sir Keir Starmer QC throw up the suggestion of judge as inquisitor and challenge our adversarial system. Professor Penny Cooper enters the debate and questions whether judges could or should cross-examine vulnerable witnesses.  

Writing under the heading ‘A Voice for Victims of Crime’, the former DPP Sir Keir Starmer QC is rightly concerned about matters which discourage victims from coming forward to report crimes and from subjecting themselves to cross-examination. He chairs a Labour Party Task Force (established in December 2013) which is to come up with proposals for a new ‘Victims’ Law’. He has suggested that a better way forward might be for judges rather than advocates to challenge the accounts of vulnerable witnesses... 

Max Hardy on the Anglo-Dutch Exchange in London this Autumn and the need for barristers with spare rooms to act as hosts.  

Tuesday 28 October to Saturday 1 November 2014 sees the Anglo-Dutch Exchange (ADE) taking place in London. This biennial event alternates between The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. 30 young lawyers from the Young Bars of Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam will be coming to London to see, hear and learn about the English justice system. The Exchange is being organised jointly by the Young Barristers’ Committee, the Junior Lawyers’ Division and the London Young Lawyers Group. It has one of the longest and most distinguished pedigrees of any legal exchange having been instituted in 1966. 

The review of independent criminal advocacy in England and Wales by former  Permanent Under Secretary Sir Bill Jeffrey and published on 7 May acknowledges the  current concerns of the criminal Bar and recognises its strengths as “a substantial  national asset”, but has put forward a  series of proposals which are unlikely to  find favour amongst barristers.  

In preparing his report he took soundings from representatives on both sides of the profession and the judiciary and consulted statistical evidence. He concluded that “there are many more criminal advocates than there is work for  them to do”. Barristers undergo vastly more initial mandatory training in advocacy than do solicitors but find themselves with “a diminishing share of the work, and are beaten neither on price [there is no price competition in publicly funded criminal work, he noted elsewhere] nor on quality”. 

Much has changed since the first women were Called to the Bar in 1922, but mentoring schemes are still essential to inspire (and retain) the next generation, write Chantal-Aimée Doerries QC and Jennifer Jones.  

The Bar has come a long way since Ivy Williams persuaded Inner Temple to Call her to the Bar on 10 May 1922. Ivy’s achievement, as the first woman to be
Called, was suffi ciently newsworthy to make the New York Times. She was one of several trailblazers of her generation and became the first woman to teach law at an English university. Helena Normanton, also Called in 1922, was the first to practise at the Bar and became the fi rst female Silk in 1949 (together with Rose Heilbron). Some 92 years have passed since they were Called and much has changed for the better: neither of us thought much about what it would be like to be a female barrister when we started out. We simply wanted to be barristers. 

Timothy Fancourt QC and Penelope Reed QC explain how the Chancery Bar Association is helping to improve the litigant-in-person experience, a key focus of the Chancery Modernisation Review.  

The drastic cuts in legal aid funding and the inexorable rise in the cost of everything in London (lawyers’ fees for substantial litigation being apparently no exception) mean that more and more people are having to represent themselves in court. Even in a finance, business and property court like the Chancery Division. And as a result, more and more litigants in person have serious cases to argue. 

The Lord Chancellor’s attitude to public interest litigation threatens the rule of law and the constitutional separation of powers,  
writes Sir Stephen Sedley.  

In 1916 the secretary of the Anti-German Union, Sir George Makgill, brought judicial review proceedings to remove from the Privy Council two wealthy Jewish philanthropists; Sir Ernest Cassel (who had actually converted to Catholicism) and Sir Edgar Speyer, on the ground that, although both were British subjects, they were not British-born. 

The Judicial Appointments Commission was created under the provisions of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 to select judges for courts and tribunals in England and Wales and for some tribunals whose jurisdiction extends to Scotland. Selections are to be made solely on merit from a broad range of candidates.  

Each year around 5000 people put in an application for the wide range of court and tribunal roles available – many of them open only to lawyers and serving judges – but also for a myriad of specialist member roles. Around 500 or so of those aspiring applicants will be successful and receive an offer of appointment. The diversity of these selections is improving – over 50% were women in our most recent set of published diversity data for both legal and non-legal roles (April- September 2013). 

Gerard Rothschild offers guidance on the administering of oaths in an increasingly secular society.  

Authorisation to administer oaths is a privilege expressly conferred by a barrister’s practicing certificate which is often overlooked. How to administer oaths features neither in the BPTC syllabus nor in the Bar Council’s Handbook. In an increasingly secular society, yet one whose legislation appears still to attach special importance to the taking of oaths, it is incumbent on those of us entrusted to administer them to ensure due formality so that their significance is respected. This article seeks to redress the lack of guidance.