Bar Focus | Communication and investment are key for 'the Bar's future

Having nearly completed my one-year term as chairman of the Bar, it is natural to look back and consider what has stood out and how, if at all, that might inform the way the Bar approaches the many challenges and opportunities which lie ahead.

At the end of last year, there were particular themes which I identified and was determined to pursue. They were communication, relevance and investment, the three ingredients which, I believe, the Bar must embrace if it is to maintain a strong and visible market presence. That applies to all practice areas. The issues facing the publicly and privately funded Bars may be different, but the need to embrace the environment they are ?operating in, justify their existence and continue to offer a competitive and high quality service, remains.

We have begun to make substantial inroads, but there is no room for complacency. We must be proactive in determining our own future and the environment in which we operate.

Communication with the outside world has not always been one of the Bar’s key strengths. As a profession of advocates, who are well accustomed to arguing their clients’ cases, it is ironic that barristers have often been hesitant to articulate the need for their services. It is second nature to barristers, and indeed to solicitors, to maintain high standards, act with ethics and integrity and provide a vital and increasingly socially responsible service both to society and to business. But not everyone shares that understanding; the government certainly has not in the past.

It is our responsibility to explain what we do, what our values are and why they matter, to a broad range of audiences. In some respects, this approach has paid off. Over the past year, we have worked very closely with the government, the City of London, UKTI, the judiciary and our colleagues at the Law Society to promote London as the world’s leading dispute resolution centre.

The Unlocking Disputes campaign, launched through considerable investment from the legal sector, has communicated a powerful message across the world of the strength and quality of our legal services sector and judiciary

I recently attended a large international conference and was pleased to see an individual set of chambers, unusually, hosting its own reception. It was a tremendous success and was one of the best received events I witnessed over the course of the conference.
Lawyers from all over the world were present and showed a genuine interest in what the Bar does. It would have been unimaginable for the Bar to take this approach to marketing its services a ?decade ago and it shows how far the profession has come.

The challenge ahead of us is to build on that approach at the commercial and chancery Bars, but also to see similar progress on the publicly funded side, where the difficulties are even more stark. We believe fervently that legal aid lawyers provide a valuable public service. The role family barristers for example play in care proceedings is as important to society as that of teachers, nurses or the police. And yet the pressure on the legal aid budget and the scope of services available continues to be squeezed relentlessly. In part, this is a reflection of the financial pressure facing all non ring-fencing government departments. But it is also because there is no groundswell of public opposition to these cuts.

Most people will never need to use a barrister’s services. They do not understand what we do, or why it is relevant to them. It is our job to make that case. Nobody will do that for us. We need to have a two-way conversation with the public, the media and parliamentarians, to listen to and engage with their perceptions of us and persuade them of the value of what we do. We must make sure that our working methods and infrastructure are open and accessible to everyone who needs our services. That might be through the traditional referral model, through direct access, or through ?an entity. It might adopt BARCO, the ?Bar’s new third party escrow account, ?to make financial transactions easier ?than ever.

What matters is that we are alert to the rapidly evolving environment in which we are operating, and make sure that we are investing in our own futures and shaping them for ourselves.