The Chairman's Blog

Last week, the Lord Chief Justice finally announced his reforms on court dress. He has been threatening to do so since January 2007. In short, judges will no longer wear wigs, wing collars or bands in civil cases. The question now is: what will barristers wear? I have already undertaken to consult the profession on this, and a consultation paper will go out before the end of the month. I expect the result to be finely balanced, so I do hope that as many people as possible will respond to the consultation. Once the results are received, we will inform the LCJ what the Bar wishes to do about Court dress in the new circumstances. Plainly, we cannot tell the Judges what to wear, but we can make sure that the Judges take note of what we think, before any final decisions are taken about what barristers should wear.

It became apparent last week that the Report stage of the Legal Services Bill will not now take place in the House of Commons before October 2007. This is unfortunate because it gives less time for the House of Lords to reconsider the amendments the Commons have made. I remain convinced that the changes the Lords made were in the public interest, and that they should hold out for their amendments on complaints delegation, independence of appointment of the Legal Services Board, and the threshold for intervention with a front line regulator by that Board. In the end, the Commons cannot impose these changes if the Lords hold their nerve, because the Bill was originally introduced into the Lords.

There was an important Bar Council meeting on Saturday 14th July. First, the new Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, attended the entire proceedings and demonstrated great interest in our affairs. She has made a good start, and I hope we will be able to work well together in the coming months.

Secondly, the Bar Council approved the plans for a new advisory Bar Quality Advisory Panel (BQAP). The plans were amended in consequence of the consultation responses received from the profession, so that the Panel will now (in the first instance) only receive references from Judges, instructing solicitors, and barristers working with the referred barrister. Also, the Panel will not be able to pass any information to the Complaints Committee or the new Office of Legal Complaints. Thus, the Panel will be entirely devoted to assisting and helping barristers who are, for any reason, not doing their job as well as might be expected. I believe that this Panel will demonstrate we are doing everything possible to maintain and enhance the Bar’s highest standards of advocacy.

Geoffrey Vos QC