Direct route to justice may pose fresh challenge to employment solicitors ;TRIBUNALS: Warning that extension of BarDIRECT should not lead to client poaching ;Employment solicitors could face increased competition for work following this weeks announcement that BarDIRECT which allows organisations to go straight to barristers has expanded to include cases in employment and employment appeals tribunals. ;Established in 1998, the scheme is already used by around 35 organisations and individuals including the police and probation services, trading standards offices, NHS trusts, clinical negligence insurers, banks and trade unions. ;Only businesses with appropriate experience can be licensed to use BarDIRECT and instructions are limited to matters of advice and ;advocacy. ;BarDIRECT chairman, Marion Simmons QC, described the expansion of the scheme as a very important staging post which would put barristers in a powerful position to help people who were often vulnerable or financially insecure. She added that there was no intention to take work away from solicitors where they offered a valued service. We will compete where solicitors are taking work away from barristers or only offering a post box service where restrictive practices mean clients had to instruct a solicitor, she said. ;Jane Mann, a partner at City firm Fox Williams and chairman of the Employment Lawyers Association, said her personal view was that the Bar provided an invaluable service to employment solicitors, some of whom were in-house at BarDIRECT organisations. ;However, Ms Mann added that she hoped the development of the scheme would not damage the Bars relationship with solicitors over issues like client poaching. ;If barristers take instructions from in-house teams, then that is fine. If they try and expand into taking on more of the role of solicitors, then I would have concerns that they will become competitors rather than supplying valuable services to us as colleagues, she said. ;Nigel Day, a member of the Law Society employment law committee, said the Society was not afraid of competition from the Bar. There was more to employment disputes than advice on points of law and advocacy where solicitors could still offer more than BarDIRECT, he added. ;Sue Allen ; ; ;