Profession

As her tenure comes to an end, Baroness Deech reflects upon her six years as Chair of the Bar Standards Board.  

In To Kill a Mockingbird, the great Harper Lee wrote: “there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal – there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution gentlemen, is a court…” 

The 2014 Annual Bar Conference took place on 8 November.  

Counsel’s editorial board reports back. 

A new way of calculating the Practising Certificate Fee according to ability to pay is to be introduced. Stephen Crowne, Chief Executive of the Bar Council, explains.  

Addressing a crowd in Worcester, Massachusetts, in autumn 1936, US President Franklin Roosevelt declared: “Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay”. At a time when the legal services market is tough and unforgiving, these words will assuredly resonate beyond those members of the Bar familiar with American history. 

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.