The Bar

Articles

Ministers abandon BVT

The MoJ has decided to abandon best value tendering for criminal legal aid. Pilot schemes in Manchester, Bristol and Somerset, due to start next year, will be scrapped.

Update: pensions

Alan Fowler reviews recent cases on missing beneficiaries, pension loss, changes to schemes, the distribution of lump sum death benefits and death in service arrangements

Solicitor advocates could become barristers, Bar chairman suggests

Nicholas Green QC, new chairman of the Bar Council, has shown he is prepared to think the unthinkable by suggesting that solicitor advocates could in the future be regulated as barristers.

Commission's "cost-cutting" VHCC scheme angers barristers and solicitors

lawyers have reacted angrily to an announcement from the LSC that one option for 'very high cost' criminal cases would be to extend the limits for the standard graduated fee scheme from cases lasting 40 days to 60 days.

A driving force

One year after coming into force, the Forced Marriage Act 2007 has had a successful start, but its progress will continue to be closely monitored, says Louise McCallum

Bar fury over "cost-cutting" VHCC scheme

Barristers have reacted angrily to an announcement from the LSC today that one option for 'very high cost' criminal cases would be to extend the limits for the standard graduated fee scheme from cases lasting 40 days to 60 days.

House of surprises

The House of Lords delivered ground-breaking judgments in 2009, the question now is how housing lawyers will live with them, and whether the new Supreme Court will take a different approach to human rights defences, says Giles Peaker

One in five firms abandons criminal legal aid

Almost one in five law firms pulled out of criminal legal aid in the year to March 2009, a National Audit Office report has found.