Michael Todd QC, chairman of the Bar Council, answers questions from Catherine Baksi.

How do you describe the health of the bar?

I think it’s extremely healthy; it’s got a very assured future. Obviously the publicly funded bar is under pressure, as indeed are solicitors who do legal aid work, due to the cuts in fees. The commercial and chancery bars seem to be thriving, with increasing amounts of international work. Perhaps domestic commercial and chancery work is down or stagnant at the moment because of the stagnation of the economy; it certainly isn’t increasing. Generally barristers’ work increases when there is movement one way or the other in the economy. If things are getting better or booming, there are more takeovers and the like, and there’s more transactional work to do. If things are more depressed and there are more insolvencies and debt related actions, then there’s more work that way.

There is a distinction between the publicly funded and private funded bar, but that’s just the source of the income. In essence it is still one bar - we have the same values; we have the same ideals; we’re concerned about the proper administration of justice; we’re concerned about the delivery of legal services in the public interest. We’re all concerned with legal services and how we can deliver them in them in the most cost-effective way and efficient way in the public interest.

What we do, the way we carry on our practices and the things that underline the way we practice are the same right across the board.

So I do believe in the one bar approach. People have asked me whether the commercial and chancery bar are interested in what is going on now for the publicly funded bar. And the answer to that is obviously yes. It’s absolutely vital because we do so much domestic and international work which depends, for its attraction to the UK and to us, on the integrity of our legal system - both our judicial system and the integrity of the practitioners. If a business or client overseas or even a domestic client sees that people are being denied proper access to justice, then they are going to be concerned about doing their business here; they might decide to relocate somewhere else. Or they might ask, in that new contract that they are about to enter, whether it is really appropriate to use English law as the substantive law of the contract. Why not use American law or Australian law instead? That’s the danger if they do not like the integrity of our legal system and administration of justice. So it is very much in the commercial and chancery bar’s interests to ensure there is proper access to justice right across the bar, not just for our own particular branch of law, but for all those deserving of a right of audience before the courts.

What makes you so assured of the bar’s future?

Solicitors see the value in the continuation of the independent referral bar and barristers and solicitors work well and will continue to work well in the future. They adapt as to what they are asking one from the other, what particular services they are prepared or willing or able to provide. That might change over time around the edges, but the independent referral bar and the system of solicitors making those referrals, is generally in the public interest and in the interests of clients because that way they get the right people doing the right with the right expertise. The bar doesn’t want to do everything solicitors do and, as far as I’m aware that solicitors don’t want to do everything the bar does.

The bar is adapting to the needs of solicitors, clients and in-house counsel. We are looking at different ways of working and ways we can provide, in the public interest, legal services in the most efficient and effective way.

With the commercial and competitive challenges, how will the bar evolve?

As we know, in the publicly funded arena price competitive tendering has been pulled back so that the government can look at it in more detail. I would suggest that a lot more detail is required.

Notwithstanding that, we now have alternative business structures. I can’t say that I’ve noticed a lot at the bar diving into alternative business structures. The public don’t seem to be demanding it or even thinking it’s the best course. The chancery and commercial bar are adapting the ways they do business, as is the criminal publicly funded bar. It may well lead to mergers of chambers or mergers of different parts of chambers, with different specialisms getting together.

Some time ago a group of barristers set up a one-stop shop, which failed. The possibility of the one-stop shop idea may come up again and needs to be considered to see if we can effectively provide our legal services together with other legal experts. That’s something to be looking at.

One thing that the Legal Services Act has done is spur people on to think about whether they are delivering services in the best, most efficient and cost-effective way in the public interest. That’s always the key thing - how can we best deliver our legal services in the public interest?

What’s happened to ProcureCos?

Because of the government’s announcement recently, we don’t have to go full tilt into ProcureCos. The Bar Council is still looking to assist and facilitate those chambers that wish to look at different ways of delivering legal services. I have never thought of a ProcureCo as being one particular model or vehicle. I think of ProcureCo as a generic name for a vehicle through which to deliver legal services.

Is there a danger that the postponement of best-value tendering (BVT) will cause barristers to stop thinking about how to change their practices?

That’s a fair point. When it was announced people did sit back, thinking it had gone off into the long grass, as it seems that contracts cannot really come in until the next parliament. But from discussions I’ve had, the bar is far from sanguine about it. The pressure is off; no one is having to rush into it, and we now have a longer period to explore how BVT can be introduced.

Can you give any examples of different practices that the bar is looking at?

Fulcrum Chambers in Lincolns Inn became a limited liability partnership. Other chambers are likely to be looking at third party funding. There are difficulties with that. Most chambers, I would think, would not wish to be involved with third-party funders, and many would not need to be.

Third-party funding was raised with considerable interest at the International Bar Association last year. People and bars outside the UK were concerned with the development of ABSs and whether or not they might cause a conflict between the interests of the funder and the interest of justice and clients. So we have to be wary of that.

Barristers are also looking at questions about whether they should be self employed, or whether they should be self-employed for part of their week and employed for others. Or whether they should bid with another set of chambers or solicitors’ firm to get a contract. I know that some chambers have got together and formed alliances with solicitors to bid for particular contracts, and even with accountants involved as well.

The legal market is changing and so is what people expect from legal service providers. The profession, both the bar and solicitors, are adapting to meet those needs.

How will the relationship between barristers and solicitors evolve with increased competition and changing working practices? Will they become more co-operative or more competitive and adversarial?

I don’t think it will become adversarial. On the fringes, and only on the fringes, I suspect it might be adversarial, but that is far from the mainstream. I have spent a lot of time, even just in last month, talking to the Law Society president John Wotton. The constant theme we have is how we can collaborate and co-operate; how we can work better together; and how the effect of working together is so much better than the effect of working individually - the aggregate is far greater.

I have every confidence that as long as I am chairman of the bar and John is president of the Law Society, we will continue to work together. That’s not just on the international agenda where we have a lot of common interest. You saw the collaboration and cooperation in the Unlocking Disputes initiative, which was a great testament to what can be achieved by working together.

Quite frankly there is no reason to be at each other’s throats. We provide by and large complimentary services. Of course there’s a bit of overlap, inevitably. There are solicitor advocates; there are barristers who want to do the litigation work that solicitors do. I don’t know many barristers who want to draft offering documents or IPOs, or who would even be able to. We provide complimentary services, we provide the expertise as and when it’s required.

Who should barristers be regulated by and what sort of entities should the Bar Standards Board (BSB) regulate?

The response to the BSB consultation was that the bar almost unanimously came out in favour of the BSB regulating entities predominantly made up of barristers. I don’t think the BSB is looking to regulate solicitors firms. That’s what the bar is in favour of too. The chambers that is an LLP is regulated by the SRA, but apart from that, I haven’t heard of barristers wishing to be regulated by the SRA.

Legal aid - do you have any confidence that the Lords will be able to make any amendments?

I think we have made inroads in the Lords. If the government listens to the arguments, there must be substantial changes. My concern is that they don’t listen or if they listen they don’t hear. Who can say what the government is going to do?

We lobby well and we are careful about the arguments we put. I have been involved in the bar’s Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill committee, chaired by Stephen Cobb QC, which meets every fortnight. The attention to the detail and arguments are very impressive. If they were made before a court, I have no doubt that there would be substantial changes. I can’t say I have quite the same confidence in parliament.

What can be done to improve social mobility and diversity at the bar?

The first thing you do is appoint Taryn Lee, who chaired last year’s bar conference, to chair the Bar Council’s social mobility group. What we have done as well, is get together people from the inns, the Bar Council and the circuits to look at our social mobility initiatives to seek to try to avoid duplication. We have four inns and various specialist bar associations, that don’t necessarily liaise over initiatives. Just think how much more we can achieve if we work together.

The social mobility committee is now separate from the Neuberger implementation committee, which has been charged with implementing the recommendations of the Neuberger review of entry to the bar.

How do you match the desire to improve diversity with the ever increasing cost of coming into the profession and the decreasing number of pupillages?

The diminishing number of pupillages is due in part to the public funding cuts. While the chancery and commercial bars see themselves competing with law firms for the best candidates, so they are paying greater pupillage awards, which means they reduce the number of pupillages they offer.

What we need to do is get it on people’s radar that there is a prospect of a career at the bar, which is interesting and which they are capable of achieving. But we have to say to those people, and it’s right to say to them, that competition for the professions is fierce, whichever they want to enter.

Do you support the BSB’s idea of introducing an aptitude test for those seeking to apply for the bar professional training course?

Yes I do. I think it’s a good idea. It is quite wrong for law schools to take on people who don’t have the aptitude to complete the course or where there is no real prospect of them being able to take their studies further. You just have to make sure that any such test is non-discriminatory.

What would you say to someone looking to come to the bar? And would that differ if they wanted to do publicly funded work?

I would say the bar is a great profession to enter. It is interesting; it is immensely varied and of most importance, it provides a service in the public interest. I’d say that for both the privately and publicly funded bar. In relation to the publicly funded arena though, I would say that the pressure on them is ever increasing; a greater return can be made at the privately funded bar because you are not being paid out of the public purse.

Therefore, where people might have been attracted to criminal or other areas of publicly funded work, they may find that their ability to do it in their early years of practice is very constrained or restricted because of the level of fees which are being paid.

The bar is a profession that is worth considering by everybody who has a real interest in the law and in the proper administration of justice.

Is there a future for the publicly funded bar?

Yes, both for junior and seniors. It is getting more and more difficult. But it is amazing when you see the junior bar - what they are prepared to do; the hours they are prepared to work and the sort of work they are prepared to do, for ever-decreasing amounts of money. They really are working in the public interest; I have no doubt about that at all. The bar does still attract people who have a desire to do public service.