Tag Results

The chairman of the Bar Council has urged the increasing number of barristers who decline to pay a voluntary £100 levy to fund its representative work to think again. Alistair MacDonald contrasted this reluctance with the 7,722 barristers who each made a £30 donation to help fund the Bar Pro Bono Unit.

The Bar Council has joined forces with a legal credit finance specialist to enable direct access barristers to offer payment plans to their clients. BARCO, the Bar’s escrow account, will hold the loans obtained for clients by Legal Cost Finance.

Junior barristers should get themselves accredited for public access work and act in cases where people are currently relying on paid McKenzie Friends, the new Bar Council chairman has said as he promised to promote direct access to the public.

The Bar Council has warned of a potential “cost to quality”, following an announcement from the Bar Standards Board (BSB) that from next month it will only accredit CPD providers, and not individual courses.

The Lord Chancellor should be a “very senior lawyer”, Nicholas Lavender QC, chairman of the Bar Council, has said. Support for the role being held by a lawyer also came from the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives.