The Thirtieth annual Bar Conference and Young Bar
Conference 2015
Elizabeth Robson Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers finds
lots to talk about… from Magna Carta and human rights to the
scandal of ‘referral fees’
S
o much to do, so little time! It would not be unfair
to say that the 30th Bar Conference held at the
Westminster Park Plaza, London on 17th October
2015 presented delegates with a rich and almost
overwhelmingly varied feast of inspirational and
certainly informative events all in one day. But which to
choose?
In addition to the speeches -- and really quite riveting they
were too -- there were no less than twenty-two breakout
seminars, referred to as ‘specialist sessions’ which covered
a wide and just possibly bewildering range of topics, from
litigants in person and McKenzie friends, to surveillance
and privacy, to new business and new developments, right
though to the pleasures and the pitfalls of public access.
But more about all this later. Suffice to say that whatever
the topic, the general theme of the Conference centred
round ‘our role as advocates in the balance between
citizen and state’ as introduced in the opening remarks
by the Conference Chairman, Kama Melly of Park Square
Barristers.
Magna Carta
There were two anniversaries noted and alluded to. One
was the thirtieth anniversary of the Conference itself. The
other -- speaking of the balance between citizen and state
-- was the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, sealed, (not
signed) by an illiterate, reluctant and surly King John. Now
there’s a document with an amazing degree of in-built
survivability.
Despite being rescinded a month after it was sealed at
Runnymede and then, over the centuries, variously ignored,
scorned, challenged, belittled and vilified, Magna Carta has
attained almost mythic status among those who are rather
fond of freedom and love the law, as it correspondingly
strikes terror in the hearts of despots and dictators
everywhere. If you want a very recent example, recall that
Chinese government declared the Great Charter to be too
‘sensitive’ to be displayed via a touring exhibition to the
general public.
So it was rather cheering to sit in among several hundred
barristers in the main hall at the Westminster Park Plaza on
a sunny morning back in October and listen to the laudatory
remarks about the Great Charter made by Bar Council
Chairman, Alistair MacDonald QC in his opening keynote
address.
‘In this Magna Carta year,’ he said, ‘we remember that the
Great Charter has underpinned our legal thinking for 800
years and played a major part in the formulation of the idea
of a constitutional monarch, represented for centuries by the
Crown in Parliament… and as a result of it, we have had the
benefit of living in a remarkably stable society.’
That stability, combined with ‘a quite astonishing flexibility’
engendered by our proud history of jury trial and the
common law has, in Alistair MacDonald’s view, ‘helped us
maintain our position as a global financial centre against
the stiffest competition’. He added that a vibrant legal
infrastructure, admired and emulated in a number of other
countries is ‘a vital component of our continued success’.
‘But -- there is also universal concern abroad about the
direction in which our justice system is heading,’ he
continued, citing ‘a number of issues across the fields of
criminal and civil law which are having a damaging effect
upon access to justice, fairness in civil society and our
standing worldwide.’
Referring to the worrying diminution of legal aid and
its attendant effects on a number of areas, including
professional ethics, as well as access to justice for the lay
client, he spoke of the ‘misalignment; in which justice is
viewed as an optional extra.’ Discussing the public interest
in general and pro bono in particular, he pronounced pro
bono as ‘a fine contribution to society, but… no substitute for
a properly funded legal aid system.’
Referral Fees: ‘like drug cheats in sport’
The highlight of his speech however, for many a beleaguered
barrister, was an exhilaratingly fierce condemnation of
‘referral fees’ deceitfully termed ‘administration fees’ by
many an opportunist solicitor. (We know who a lot of you
are.)
Commenting on the announcement from the Ministry of
Justice that it would seek to crack down hard on referral
fees, Alistair MacDonald called for a complete ban on all
such fees paid to instructing solicitors by advocates. (We are
getting to know who you are too.) ‘Like the drug cheats in
sport,’ he said, ‘…there are no depths to the ingenuous and
ingenious means by which the cheats would seek to dress up
their referral fees.’
Well received by the assembled delegates, (as you can
imagine) the matter of referral fees turned out to be one of
the hotter topics of the day, together with a lot of other vexed
questions relating to remuneration and the acquisition of
new business.
30 the barrister Hilary Term 2016
barmag67.indd 30
03/12/2015 10:21