Niall Morison's paternal grandfather was an expert in the land law of the Isle of Mull on the west coast of Scotland, advising chiefly on disputes between crofters and their landlords.A recondite and historic-sounding area of the law agreed, but one which was of vital importance to the parties concerned, not least the crofters.The uncharitable might argue that the sustenance of a highly specialised form of legal practice is also grandson Niall Morison's prime concern.Mr Morison himself is a non-lawyer - his background is in accountancy - but he has been with the Bar Council's secretariat since 1974, and was recently made its chief executive, succeeding John Mottram.'People ask if, as a non-lawyer, I find it difficult to be chief executive of the Bar Council.

The answer is no, because I have access to the best legal brains in the country.

Why should I want to impose my legal views on them?The Bar Council's current structure is largely the product of a 1986 purge.

Led by the so-called 'slate' of progressive barristers - Anthony Scrivener, Gareth Williams, Robin de Wylde and others - this saw the dissolution of the senate combining the Inns of Court and the Bar Council.'There was a feeling that the Bar needed to express itself as an independent body, which some felt it was unable to do as part of the senate,' explains Mr Morison.Indeed, that independence was most recently demonstrated by the Bar's censuring of the inns for their failure to get cracking on the introduction of equal opportunities policies (see [1994] Gazette, 16 November, 8).The changes of the 1980s have produced a lean machine for the 1990s, seen as reasonably democratic and representative of its constituents.'Compared to the Law Society, we are more driven by the needs of the profession, dare I say it, than by the needs of the secretariat.

In other words, we rely more on the input of the practitioner.'The Bar employs just 45 people in-house and spends a little over £3 million a year.

Barristers pay nothing for their first two years of call, then annual fees on a rising scale of up to £475 for a QC are paid to the Bar Council.

The council itself is fairly large, with 110 members, for a profession of 8000, and council members are for the most part elected in contested elections.So is it all a recipe for success of which the Law Society should take careful note?Mr Morison is characteristically modest: 'The fact that the Law Society is receiving brickbats at present is partly due to circumstances.

We have had our fair share in the past and I expect we will get our fair share in the future.'But the thing to ensure is that your members know what you are doing and why you are doing it, and to demonstrate leadership in doing so.'Communication is clearly vital, and Mr Morison believes that the Bar's post-1986 structure helped it better to confront the challenges of the courts and legal services reforms of recent years.'It made the leadership of the Bar that much easier because they had a democratic organisation which was able to test the view of the Bar in relation to proposals that were coming through from the government.A key element of the Bar's approach to communications is its use of government and media consultants West-minster Strategy.

Mr Morison describes the firm as 'our link between the profession and the media and parliamentary world'.'Westminster Strategy acts as our agent in identifying the groups and individuals that we need to lobby; they provide us with the contacts; they provide us with the advice as to who we should be lobbying, who we should be speaking to.'The Bar Council has recognised the need to use outside expertise in areas where it has none itself,' he says, 'and this is something which my predecessor John Mottram was very good at.'As an approach, it reflects the way in which many within the Bar's leadership see the advocacy arm of the legal profession developing - as outsourced specialists, independent referral advocates who actively opt for the Bar as their professional locus operandi.But it is not only the challenge of solicitor advocates that the Bar faces.

In September, the independent Bar standards review body, chaired by Lord Alexander of Weedon QC, called for wide-ranging changes at the Bar, including a new complaints bureau, tougher rules on the return of briefs and a partial end to the cab-rank rule (see [1994] Gazette, 14 September, 3).The package has to meet the approval of the Bar Council before it can be implemented, but Mr Morison feels it reflects a need to respond to criticisms made by the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, the Lord Chancellor's advisory committee and consumer groups.'The public are becoming more aware of the cost of the legal service and are prepared to shop around.

Solicitors have probably more problems with that than we have because of their contact with the lay client, but it will have a spin-off effect for the Bar...

and that is part of the harder, competitive world that we operate in.'And he calls on law firms to keep the Bar on its toes: 'The great filter in standards ought to be solicitors themselves, to make sure that they are instructing individuals who are competent, and that if they are not, they do not instruct them again.'