The Bar Council have recently posted a document issued by The Ethics Committee entitled Role of barristers in non-solicitor cases.
Public access barristers will find it contains particularly helpful instruction, on previously unanswered topics such as:
- Whether public access clients are expected to complete a Precedent H if they have a legal representative acting for them;
- Whether public access barristers can inform a court in advance that they will be attending to represent their client;
- Whether lodging trial bundles amounts to the conduct of litigation;
- Whether public access barristers are able to pay their client’s court fee without being put in funds beforehand;
- Whether “any court in England and Wales” includes Tribunals;
- Whether sending pre-action protocol letters amount to the conduct of litigation
- Whether a litigation friend can instruct a public access barrister; and
- Whether the court can authorise a public access barrister to conduct litigation in exceptional circumstances.
Barristers should be mindful that this document is not ‘guidance’ for the purposes of the BSB Handbook 16.4, and neither the BSB nor a disciplinary tribunal nor the Legal Ombudsman is bound by any views or advice expressed in it.