Practice Toolset

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. 

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. 

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 introduces contingency fees into main-stream litigation. Timothy Mayer considers whether this change also brings with it a potential adverse costs risks for lawyers where a claim is unsuccessful.
 

In a two part feature, Graham Cunningham looks at the new guidelines  on Information Security; in part 1, he examines the guidelines  regarding electronic devices.  

There is good news; and there is bad news. The good news is that there are only two or three barristers on the ‘ICO list’. The bad news, in these harsh economic times, is that you could be spending a lot of your increasingly hard-earned cash on paying administrative penalties to the Government. 

Jacqueline Kinghan, Director of Clinical Legal Education at UCL Faculty of Laws, examines the continuing role of the undergraduate law degree in the light of the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR). 

The Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) recently published a discussion paper with suggestions for simplifying the structure of legal education and ensuring it is fit for purpose. The proposals – including whether to abolish the qualifying law degree – have re-ignited the all too familiar skills versus scholarship debate in legal education. Several leading academics have criticised the LLB as a poor combination of a liberal arts programme with arbitrarily-selected technical legal skills. In some camps, a graduate programme or Bar Exam like that in the US has been a suggested preferred course. Rebecca Huxley-Binns at NTU appears to favour the retention of the degree but proposes that the core subjects be taught around ‘intellectual professional legal skills’ such as drafting, writing, reasoning and commercial awareness. 

Hassan Khan and Claire Fox, Co-Chairs of the Bar Lesbian and Gay Group, on expanding the remit of BLAGG. 

Is it OK to be Gay at the Bar? Will the Bar Standards Board’s new Equality Rules make a difference?

In 2011, we became co-chairs of the Bar Lesbian and Gay Group (BLAGG) which was formed in 1994 by a group of students at the Inns of Court School of Law. We now have over 300 members across the profession including students, pupils, barristers and Queen’s Counsel. BLAGG’s primary aim is to support lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender members, at whatever stage they are in the profession, whether or not they are ‘out’ or if they simply wish to socialise and meet fellow members of the Bar. We provide information, advice and support, particularly to those wishing to join the profession. 

Melissa Coutinho, co-Chair of the Employed Bar, reports back to Counsel from the 2012 conference.   

A gloriously and unseasonably hot March 21st this year, saw barristers hurrying across Lincoln’s Inn Fields with envious backward glances at those sunbathing and enjoying an al fresco lunch seemingly without a care in the world. They were heading towards the Employed Bar’s Annual Conference. This year’s theme was “A week in the life of an Employed Barrister,” which was chosen to demonstrate that there is no typical week for such a soul. It focused on the breadth of work and variety of working arrangements that employed barristers enjoy, within the parameters permitted by our Code of Conduct. 

A judge’s view

Mr Justice Christopher Clarke gives Counsel a view from the Bench 

It is a commonplace observation to bewail the size of modern judgments compared with the economy of our distinguished predecessors. What they would have thought of the plethora of documents with which even a modest civil case is now encumbered I dare not to think. In the days when any copy had to be made by hand it was remarkable how few documents you could deal with. 

John Newth concludes his review of the special tax provisions that affect practising barristers, focusing on the tax surrounding expenses and barristers’ clerks. 

In Part 1 (Counsel June 2012), I dealt with the end of the cash basis and the consequences of having to include work in progress at full value after June 2005. The effect of these provisions on newly qualified barristers, and numerical examples showing how the statutory changes could work in practice, were also included. In this article I turn to the practical issues of tax deductible expenses and the taxation of barristers’ clerks. 

Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) recently published its follow-up to the 2009 review of CPS in-house prosecution advocacy and case presentation. Chief Inspector Michael Fuller QPM gauges progress. 

The CPS’s aspiration routinely to conduct its own high quality advocacy in all courts, and across the full range of cases, is realistic and achievable. However, it is dependent on the current high-level focus on quality being sustained and advocacy experience being developed.