Practice Toolset

“Would you encourage your daughter to join the Bar?” asks Neelam Sarkaria  

Women in the profession are often asked whether we would recommend the Bar as a future career to their daughters.  

As the election looms, Lord Bach, shadow attorney general, talks to Chris McWatters and puts Labour’s case for justice.  

I didn’t expect to find myself in this position,” says Lord Bach, “but I’m delighted Ed Miliband asked me to do it!” 

Chris Henley QC looks at the Leveson Review and examines the proposals it makes to increase efficiency in criminal proceedings.  

The Right Honourable Sir Brian Leveson, President of the Queen’s Bench Division, was tasked in February 2014 by the Lord Chief Justice, responding to a request by the Lord Chancellor, to conduct a review into the efficiency of criminal proceedings. 

Sacrificing genetic confidentiality and criminalising revenge pornography; just some of the proposals by the sixth form participants of the 2014 Model Law Commission.  

Big Voice’s Victoria Anderson explains. 

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. 

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. 

S Chelvan, LALY Barrister 2014, recalls the dark days of sexual identity asylum law and explains why he chose to practise in one of the most politically charged areas of the law GUIDE.  

“With all the legal aid cuts, you will most probably be the last Legal Aid Barrister of the Year.” 

As legal aid cuts bite, Anika Jones explains the pop-up clinic at 1MCB.  

1MCB was founded over 35 years ago with the aim of representing all sectors of the community. 

The diversity of the employed Bar.  

A popular misconception when considering the employed Bar is assuming that roles are either in a solicitor’s firm or in the Government Legal Service or CPS. Dispelling this myth, Melissa Coutinho continues her series of 60 second interviews which demonstrate the diversity of work that employed lawyers undertake. 

Sir Dennis Byron, with 32 years on the bench and still sitting, is one of the longest-serving judges in the common law jurisdiction.   

The most notable aspect of his career has been his service on courts which have combined both domestic and international jurisdictions, as Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and now as President of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).