News focus: What now for the bar?

The theme of this year’s Bar Conference, whose plenary event took place last Saturday, was ‘future-proofing the bar’. Speakers explored the various ways that the bar can be strengthened, and be perceived to be sustainable, resilient and diverse.

So, what needs to be done?

Barristers must become more commercially aware, delegates attending a session on creating a financially sustainable chambers heard. This may not come naturally to all barristers – but one thing they can do is provide informed fee estimates.

Joe Wilson, chambers director at St Philips, Birmingham and Leeds, discovered that one of his barristers was undercharging by 30% each time.

Solicitor Maryam Oghanna, a senior associate at Forsters, said instructing law firms need better information so they can provide accurate estimates to clients: ‘We need an accurate picture. From the client side, it is better to negotiate these things up front, be honest. Negotiating down the line annoys clients a lot more. They may be annoyed at the start when they see the estimate, but if you say it will be “x” and later try to negotiate, it causes issues for solicitors.’

Marcia Shekerdemian KC, of Wilberforce Chambers, said informed estimates are key: ‘When you get a set of instructions, you can tell most of the time when it is a self-contained piece of work. A barrister can tell where there’s going to be back and forth, information gathering. You build that into the quote upfront.’

‘And say so,’ added Peter Blair, chief operating officer at Quadrant Chambers. ‘Say, “I have done this before, a similar case. There were 26 hours of phone calls and 827 emails”.’

Taken silk? Don’t hike your fees overnight, Wilson said. ‘Clients don’t like that. What’s changed other than the initials?’

'Negotiating down the line annoys clients a lot more. They may be annoyed at the start when they see the estimate, but if you say it will be ‘x’ and later try to negotiate, it causes issues for solicitors'

Maryam Oghanna, Forsters

With prices going up generally, should barristers increase their rates? ‘You cannot just put your rates up without talking to the client,’ Blair said. ‘Explain why rates are going up. They will be understanding. They will not necessarily be surprised rates are going up, but chances are clients will want to have a discussion about it.’

Chambers also need to think about cashflow and reserves.

‘Chambers need to be run like a business,’ Blair said. ‘When Covid hit, we needed laptops, we bought laptops. It was a minor interruption logistically partly because we were boring enough to have done some risk-planning scenarios.’

A strong and sustainable bar also requires a strong commitment to equality and diversity, the conference heard.

When it comes to managing career breaks, ‘barristers should always be remembered; they remain a member of chambers,’ Shekerdemian said. ‘Working with barristers in the lead-up to coming back to work. It’s working up to that moment, introducing the concept of that barrister coming back to work to key clients.’

Key to supporting a barrister’s return to work are the practice management team and clerks, a session on careers, retention and modernisation of working practices heard.

Twenty Essex chief executive Jemma Tagg said: ‘As barristers, you have to think about yourself as a business, then look to your practice management team on how you need them to support your business, both in the way you put yourself in front of your clients, how your clients are going to be managed when you’re not there and ensuring the team looks after your practice.’

Chambers also need to think about work allocation. Tagg said she had received letters from instructing law firms wanting to see a diverse list of counsel put forward or they would take their business elsewhere. ‘It forces sets of chambers to think about how the work is distributed.’

Finally, culture is important for recruitment and retention.

Barristers have realised, post-lockdown, they can function perfectly well from home, but junior members are not going to phone a colleague to ask a stupid question, Blair said. The key to tempting people into the office? ‘Naked bribery. We have coffee mornings, lunches, slightly more chambers meetings which are catered,’ said Blair.

A more worrying aspect of culture that needs to be tackled is bullying and harassment. ‘Previously, I would have seen these reports and think it’s a bad apple, a rogue barrister,’ said Exchange Chambers’ Chris Gutteridge, co-founder of ‘All Rise’, a project designed to tackle bullying, harassment and discrimination at the bar. ‘With respect, it’s a pattern. All of those people are people’s colleagues in chambers, people’s friends at the bar. The pattern that emerges is one of tolerance of inappropriate behaviour. It’s a problem insidious at the bar.’

Pictured above L-R: Maryam Oghanna, Joe Wilson, Marcia Shekerdemian KC, Peter Blair and Fiona Fitzgerald