Profession

The real picture: Sam Mercer explains what the Bar Council’s recent Snapshot research reveals about the experience of women at the Bar today and its recommendations for supporting long-term careers  

You may have seen some of the rather sensationalist headlines that greeted publication of the Bar Council’s new gender report Snapshot: The Experience of Women at the Self-Employed Bar  in July (The Independent : “Female barristers subjected to shocking levels of rampant sexism, says Bar report”, Law Gazette : “Sexism still rampant in the ‘children’s playground’ of the Bar”).  

Are you ready to become a judge? In the first of a series in which Counsel explores how to join the judiciary, HHJ Usha Karu outlines her own tribunals route and offers an insight into the application and selection processes  

When barristers consider applying for judicial appointment they frequently have only one role in mind – Recorder.  

This year the Bar welcomed its first pupils under the Inns of Court’s Pupillage Matched Funding Scheme. Nathalie Lieven QC reports  

The Pupillage Matched Funding Scheme was set up in 2013 and has been very successful in helping numbers of students to qualify as barristers.  

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 

Mrs Justice Vivien Rose talks to Anthony Inglese about her unusual route to the High Court bench  

In the small talk before going in to meet Her Majesty and being made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the newly-appointed Mrs Justice Vivien Rose was asked, “Have you had to come far?”  

More needs to be done to safeguard vulnerable witnesses in the family courts, says Gillian Geddes  

Whatever family practitioners do next, I suggest they make it their highest priority to log on to The Advocate’s Gateway and examine the list of excellent Toolkits on the right of the home page. 

Andrew Granville Stafford considers the attractions, the pitfalls and the mechanics of public access work  

Among my first public access clients were an African prince, a 70s prog rock star and the former managing clerk of a large solicitor’s firm whose preferred method of payment was an envelope containing £50 notes.  

Simon Sugar explains how, post-LASPO, one of the challenges for the Bar is how to devise a cost-effective structure for the provision of public access services to meet the increasing demand from both “public” and “commercial” litigants-in-person  

“Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie” - All’s Well That Ends Well  

Entrepreneurship and collaboration: Stephen Ward explains why “innovative” thinking around public access isn’t the real starting point  

I have been to far too many conferences lately that urge legal professionals – particularly the Bar – to be “innovative” in order to survive in the modern legal world.  

Amanda de Winter explains her route to setting up a high-street direct access practice and argues that a full litigation practice offers the junior Bar a viable future  

Is direct access a real alternative to traditional methods of practice? My answer is a resounding yes, if you are able to offer a full litigation service to your client.