Marc Beaumont calls for the Public Access Bar to defend itself more effectively against Complaints.
According to the Complaints Commissioner at the Bar Conference last November, Public Access Complaints are on the increase. Since the inception of the Public Access scheme in 2004, such Complaints have been fairly few, but they are expected to rise in 2010. Certainly, there is a developing theme of client expectations being unrealistically high. For instance, the health warning that we cannot and do not manage litigation is sometimes forgotten. It is thus important to emphasise that the management of a case is the client's alone. This can be frustrating - one gets one's teeth into a new case only for its management to be snatched away. But it is important that we remind our clients that management day to day is not our job, but theirs.
When a Complaint arrives in a Public Access case, it is important that the complained-against Barrister instructs a Barrister with Public Access experience. The pressures are different. I am not sure that the BSB's Barristers fully understand PA work and its unique features. How many of the BSB's Complaints Committee do Public Access work ? I would like to hear from PA Barristers who defend other professionals, so that we can compile a list of defence Counsel for the PABA website - see www.paba.org.uk This would follow my creation of BCAS (the Barristers' Complaints Advisory Service) and my successful campaign for insurance-backed defence, now thankfully taken up by BMIF.
The need for experienced defenders of other Barristers has never been greater. The BSB is under pressure from above to be a demonstrably robust regulator. The Public Access Bar is a soft target for Complaints. I am myself defending a number of Barristers at present. In an article shortly to be published, I discuss how there is little equality of arms as between powerful regulators and sole practitioners - for that is what ALL Barristers are, irrespective of the cachet of any particular professional address. In advocating a psychological impact assessment of the Bar's reaction to the Complaints process over, say, 2 years, I will say:
The BSB does not regulate bureaucracies of equivalent financial and administrative power (because in a profession made up of sole practitioners, there aren’t any), but individual men and women. When the BSB trains its attention upon an individual barrister, the power imbalance is truly massive.
I agree entirely with Marc about the content of his article. He is absolutely spot on. I hope as many people as possible will come to the next PABA meeting with Dominic Grieve QC MP to raise this and other public access issues. The meeting is on 24th February 2010 at 6:15 pm in the Macmillan Room, Portcullis House, London SW1.
please see www.paba.org.uk
Phillip Taylor
Posted by: Phillip Taylor | 01/11/2010 at 10:42 PM