Barristers’ clerks to Bar Standards Board: regulate us
The Institute of Barristers’ Clerks (IBC) is lobbying the Bar Standards Board (BSB) to start regulating the work clerks do, as it strives to have the job recognised as a profession in its own right.
David Barnes
The Bar Council and IBC are holding talks about what shape any regulation might take and whether the IBC could be integrated into the Bar Council.
Chair of the IBC and senior clerk at 39 Essex Street David Barnes said: “We’re going to be working more closely with the BSB and discussing how clerks can be integrated into the Bar Council. The idea is that senior members of the administration team need to be regulated in some way. It won’t be too onerous.”
The IBC wants clerks to be regulated as a symbolic move to recognise the professional contribution they make to chambers.
Any regulatory framework would also cover members of the Legal Practice Management Association (LPMA), the trade body for legal practice managers.
Barnes added: “We’re keen to bring the LPMA into the organisation.”
The IBC is working on a number of initiatives with the Bar Council at a time when leading commercial sets are seeing a boom in litigation but smaller publicly funded sets are under financial pressure.
Readers' comments (3)
Anonymous | 21-Mar-2011 12:20 pm
If clerks are managing accounts worth £millions shouldn't they be regulated by the FSA? Ttey lurk in the background of chambers and stay quiet about what strings they are pulling, it symbolises the lack of transparency right across the bar.
It is about time the Bar Council started encouraging transparency for all, not just the firms who instruct them.
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ClerkN'Well | 21-Mar-2011 2:16 pm
Seems to be inspired by two things: first that more and more sets are hiring in chief execs to run things, leaving many clerks feeling passed over and under-valued. Gaining a professional regulator gives them a certain kudos. The second issue is when the BSB finally allows entity regulation (sometime this year) clerks could find themselves as the managers of ltd companies, with as the poster above states, many millions of pounds in revenues. Also, if entities are allowed to hold client monies, as solicitors firms can, then clerks may well need some kind of regulatory oversight in any case. Other than that can't see why need to be regulated, as clerks are not about to offer legal services. (Although not sure about bringing in the FSA.)
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Marc Beaumont | 31-Mar-2011 12:16 pm
At a time at which the Bar's income is falling, the suggestion that more funds should be pumped into the BSB to create yet another system of regulation that no-one wants or needs, is noteworthy. If Clerks wish to pay towards this, then fine, but I suspect the subscriptions and the cost of yet more BSB staff, will be met by the "Guvnors." Before increasing the incidence of the prosecution of Barristers, or even of Clerks, proper, accountable and transparent systems of fairness and due process for the Bar need to replace what is sometimes painfully redolent of kangaroo justice.
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