pupillage

ON 2 February 2010, the influential House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published a damning report on the Legal Services Commission’s handling of legal aid reform. The report on criminal legal aid procurement also warns that the increased use of solicitors to conduct work in the Crown Court is threatening the long-term future of the junior criminal Bar and may be affecting the quality of advocacy provided in those courts. The procurement of legal aid in England and Wales by the Legal Services Commission (HC 322) echoes many of the deeply held concerns of the Bar Council. 

It criticises the LSC for ‘poor financial management and internal controls and deficient management information’. It says the Commission does not know whether its reforms are working or what they are doing to the sustainability of providers. 

Catherine Piercy wonders whether the advocacy training provided by the BVC and the Inns will stand up in court.  

When I was born, no barrister was taught advocacy and most people—I am told—did not believe that it could be done. I am very much the product of the “new world”, having undergone the Bar Vocational Course (“BVC”), my Inn’s advocacy training during my BVC year, and most recently the pupillage course. Is it true that my years as a practitioner—should I be fortunate enough to get a tenancy—will be spent unlearning everything I have previously been taught? 

A new aptitude test for prospective Bar Professional Training Course students applying to start the course (previously known as the Bar Vocational Course) in 2011 is to be piloted from the beginning of February. The Bar Standards Board is appealing for current students to take part in the pilot. 

From 1 January 2010, second six pupils must have a practising certificate in order to exercise a right of audience. The Bar Standards Board has issued guidance on this matter to all pupils and pupil supervisors. 

When the relevant parts of the Legal Services Act 2007 came into force on the 1 January 2010, it became a criminal offence to undertake a reserved legal activity, such as exercising a right of audience without having in force a valid practising certificate. 

All pupils who are currently undertaking their second six months pupillage have now been sent a practising certificate. All pupils and pupil supervisors have been written to about the implications of these changes and guidance can be found on our website: 

Following the difficulties experienced by Cardiff Law School’s “Quality Assurance for Advocates” pilot programme what are the options available for future monitoring schemes, asks David Wurtzel.  

One of the aspects of being self-employed is that there is no one to appraise or quality assure you. The prospect that this might change for the Bar arose three and a half years ago when Lord Carter recommended, “A proportionate system of quality monitoring based on the principles of peer review and a rounded appraisal and should be developed for all advocates working in the criminal, civil and family courts”—and in the first instance, for publicly funded criminal advocates. This was sometimes referred to as the “Carter trade-off”: practitioners would receive more money and in return would institute quality assurance (“QA”). The money was indeed forthcoming but QA was not. Ironically, just when the government is likely to renege on most of the rise in fees, criminal court advocates finally do face the development of a QA programme. The details are very far from decided. 

Two years after publication of Lord Neuberger’s Entry to the Bar Working Party Report, the Bar Council launched “No bar to the Bar: barristers promoting social mobility”, a brochure setting out the work done by the Bar in this area and the initiatives developed since the Neuberger Report, writes Bhavna Patel. 

At an event held to mark the occasion on 2 December 2009 at Inner Temple, David Lammy MP, Minister of State for Higher Education and Intellectual Property, commended the Bar for the huge strides it has made in this area. 

A CPD Working Group, chaired by Derek Wood QC, has been setup to conduct a comprehensive review of the continuing education and professional development of practising barristers (in respect of both new practitioners and established practitioners). This follows reviews of the Vocational and Pupillage stages of barristers’ training, which were also chaired by Derek Wood QC. 

The Bar Professional Training Course which replaces the Bar Vocational Course in September 2010 is evolution not revolution, believes Marcus Soanes.  

In September 2010, the Bar Professional Training Course (“BPTC”) replaces the existing Bar Vocational Course (“BVC”). The BVC was designed at the end of the 1980s by the Bar Council fulfilling its statutory obligation to maintain and enhance standards in education for the profession. That course established the pattern for the training that prepares students for pupillage, and placed written and interpersonal skills at its centre. Since that time, the Bar Council, and subsequently the Bar Standards Board (“BSB”), has refined the course requirements and validated several institutions across the country to deliver the BVC. Through its regulatory bodies, the profession has sought to standardise training for the Bar, and has, to a large extent, dictated the course curriculum, its length and the learning facilities for students. This means that institutions offering the programme have had to fulfil their validation requirements and to respond to revisions imposed on them. Over the years, several working parties were established to ensure that the BVC remained fit for purpose. The most significant was that chaired by the then Mr Justice Elias, which instituted changes to the course content and assessment framework from 2002. 

THE Bar Council, in conjunction with the Inns of Court, has launched No bar to the Bar, a review of the diverse measures adopted by the profession to help all those of ability to have access to a career as a barrister, regardless of their background. 'No bar to the Bar' takes stock of the Bar’s continuing work in this area, and gives a snapshot of just some of the talented applicants who have achieved real success at the Bar and within the judiciary.