Practice Toolset

Jane Hoyal was named Legal Aid Barrister of the Year at the recent LALY awards. Carol Storer shares the story behind her nomination and also that of the LALY newcomer of the year  

The Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards are now in their eleventh year. At a ceremony at the Globe Theatre on 2 July, the winners of the ten awards were announced. Lord Justice Andrew McFarlane presented the trophies and John Howard, former BBC journalist, compered the evening. 

Robert Francis QC considers what work there is for counsel at public inquiries  

On coming to the Bar most of us did not foresee the need to exercise our newly found skills by pushing post-it notes to another barrister suggesting questions for him or her to ask. Yet that appears to be the fate of many instructed to appear for a core participant at a public inquiry. Another activity at some inquiries seems to be careful self positioning near Counsel to the Inquiry for the benefit of the TV cameras. 

Derek Wood QC assesses the first phase of the Legal Education and Training Review, the June 2013 Report by the appointed Research Team, and examines its value.  

This lengthy Report was commissioned by the front-line regulators of the three main branches of the legal profession – the Institute of Legal Executives, the Bar Standards Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (ILEX, BSB and SRA)–who have established an overall Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) to consider the future of legal education and training in the light of the Legal Services Act 2007. The Report is addressed primarily to those regulators. It is the first phase of the LETR. The LETR itself had been prompted in large measure by remarks circulated by the Chairman of the Legal Services Board that the nation’s legal education and training system is “unfit for purpose” or “fit only for a bygone age”. The Report does not support these statements. The regulators, having received the Report, will consult their members on its findings. The BSB will ask the Bar for its views in due course. 

Designed to help applicants for Silk and judicial appointments from all areas of the profession, the Bar Council’s Mentoring Service for the Bar launches this month. Amanda-Jane Field explains  

This month sees the launch of the Bar Council’s Mentoring Service for the Bar. The idea began as a joint initiative between two Bar Council Committees, the Legal Services Committee and the Employed Barristers’ Committee. Supported by the Equality & Diversity Committee, it is designed to increase the number of successful applicants for Silk and judicial appointments from all sectors of the Bar. It builds on the many years’ work that the Bar Council has undertaken to increase diversity in the profession and in the higher judiciary. The service aims to put applicants for silk and judicial appointments in the best position they can be in, by providing an adviser to help analyse their skills and complete the evidence-based forms. 

With keynote speeches from the new Lord Chief Justice and from Lord Pannick QC, Saba Naqshbandi explains why you should attend this year’s Annual Bar Conference  

Key Facts
Date: Saturday 2 November 2013
Venue: Westminster Park Plaza
CPD: 6 points
Cost: Prices start from £125 

With frustrations common on both sides, Maura McGowan QC, Chairman of the Bar, investigates the process by which the Legal Aid Agency pays barristers, and Matthew Coats, its Chief Executive, explains the agency’s work and priorities.   

I do not generally suffer from paranoid delusions but I confess to a belief that any file in my name which arrived at the Legal Aid Agency was spirited away and hidden behind a filing cabinet for a few months before being dusted down in order to be rejected because I had missed a full stop. Having spoken to practitioners over the last year or two I have discovered that I am not alone. Why do so many of us think this is what is happening? Are they out to get us? 

Chris McWatters talks to Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, about the modernisation of family justice . 

Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division since January, is in defiant mood. He has been tasked with a wholesale modernisation of family justice to reduce delay, the scourge of children’s proceedings. And he isn’t going to tolerate pessimism from family justice professionals who think that, for a variety of reasons, this just can’t be done. 

As QASA, the assessment of advocates by the judges before whom they appear, is finalised, Lord Carlile suggests a scheme by which the judges themselves are inspected . 

All of us at the Bar have stories about the behaviour of judges. Many are about exceptional brilliance, kindness and courtesy: there is little doubt that the overall quality of the judiciary at every level compares favourably with any other jurisdiction in the world. It is not always so, however: for example, in my early days on the Welsh Circuit there was a ferociously able (both words used literally) judge who, while reaching the correct decisions, reduced not a few barristers to tears, and witnesses to jelly. The trial outcomes were rarely challengeable, but the means of reaching them were sometimes unacceptable. 

The new BSB Handbook is less prescriptive, focusing more on what the outcome of a rule should be, rather than trying to define how a barrister should act in every situation. Ewen Macleod explains  

The current Code of Conduct, which defines how barristers practise, was first created by the Bar Council almost a decade ago. While many rule changes have been implemented over the course of the last 10 years, its basic underpinning framework remained the same. 

Taryn Lee QC outlines the benefits of the Bar Placement Week initiative . 

If you were in court in London or Birmingham in July and your opposite counsel was accompanied by an earnest-looking youth, you may be forgiven for thinking “my goodness, solicitors are getting younger”. In fact, you might have been standing opposite a “mentor barrister” with their Bar Placement Week student. Bar Placement Week is an extraordinary initiative that places high-achieving Year 12 students from low income backgrounds with barristers from a whole host of practice areas across London and Birmingham.