Practice Toolset

David Wurtzel meets Sir Michael Pitt, the successor to David Edmonds as Chairman of the Legal Services Board, and reports back to Counsel on a man the Bar can talk to.  

Sir Michael Pitt is such a courteous and welcoming interviewee, it seemed churlish to mention the hostility which many at the Bar feel towards the Legal Services Board, of which he has been Chairman since 1 May. From client letters to QASA, barristers like to say that they are “over-regulated”. 

Celebrating excellence  

Key Facts 

Date: Saturday 8 November 2014 

Time: 08:00–18:00 

Cost: Prices start from £125 

CPD: Up to 5 points 

Venue: Westminster Park Plaza, 

200 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7UT 

Do the Inns of Court need to change to stay relevant and can they meet the needs of the next generation of barristers? In an article based upon his recent speech to Middle Temple, Lord Judge refl ects upon their future.  

My thesis this evening comes from Di Lampedusa: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” 

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. To dispel this myth, Melissa Coutinho begins a series of 60 second interviews which demonstrate the diversity of work that employed lawyers undertake. 

Lance Ashworth QC examines the unappreciated effects of legal aid cuts and how the Bar can help.  

More than a year after the significant cuts to civil legal aid introduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the Ministry of Justice has published statistics showing that spending on legal aid fell £150 million to £800 million in 2013-2014, the lowest level since 2007. 

An interview with Simon Thornton-Wood by Rupert Jones of Citadel Chambers.  

Simon Thornton-Wood is head of education and training at the Bar Standards Board. He’s not a lawyer, in fact, he previously worked for the Royal Horticultural Society, but says that experience helps him in his role: “It puts me in the sorts of shoes that barristers are in, having the intellectual confidence to pick up whole new subject areas with a brief and approach it with a fresh mind.” 

Two recent reports present an intriguing insight into the life of the modern barrister, as David Wurtzel reports.  

Published within weeks of one another, the second Barristers’ Working Lives and the annual Bar Barometer give a fascinating picture of who we are and what we think. 

How can direct access barristers avoid adverse rulings by the Legal Ombudsman? Adam Sampson reports.  

In February, the Administrative Court quashed a decision of the Ombudsman on the complaint of a client that a barrister had provided a “poor service” and remitted the matter for further consideration in the light of his judgment. It was the first successful judicial review against our scheme since we began to deal with cases over three years ago. 

Some while ago in these columns, I wrote about the Chancery Master, Richard Wakeford, whose valiant acts took place during the Second World War and for which he was awarded the highest Military decoration, the Victoria Cross.   

With the centenary of the commencement of the First World War, it is appropriate to remember another Chancery Master and his gallantry during that earlier conflict. 

Rupert Butler returned to the Bar in 2003, after a three year hiatus from practice. A barrister since 1988,  he specialises in various areas of law, including commercial, sports, and media. He spent two years working in a solicitors’ firm and it was here that he honed his litigation skills. At the time, he says, “I was always frustrated and held back by the limits on barristers [who wanted to undertake litigation]. It meant you could offer a service, but not a complete service...”  

That all changed in January 2014. The new Handbook was introduced by the Bar Standards Board (BSB). Previous rules preventing self-employed barristers from applying for authorisation to conduct litigation were removed. Butler is enthusiastic about the change – confident that it will help him adapt the way he delivers services to meet the needs of his clients. “I’m now a genuine one-stop-shop. I will now be able to handle [clients’] needs without the intervention of a solicitor.”