language and understanding from
the top to the bottom, across each
department of the BSB and we want
this conversation to go wider. As
a regulator, our starting point for
understanding our role is to look
beyond High Holborn to wider society
and the legal services market as a
whole. Our approach must be rooted in
the evidence.
We have identified three broad themes
relating to risk which we want the
profession to help us address.
1. There is the risk of our failing to
meet changing consumer needs,
driven by new avenues opened up
by technology complicated by low
levels of public understanding of
what is already available from
the legal profession.
2. There is a risk that
discrimination, lack of diversity
and what I might call outmoded
working practices limit the
profession’s ability to meet
effectively the needs of a
culturally diverse range of
consumers who need and rely
upon legal services
3. Economic pressures (market
uncertainty & commercial
strain) could affect the quality,
independence, availability and
supply of legal services.
increase in litigants-in-person, and
barristers find themselves squeezed out
of the market by a declining case load
and growing competition both from
other regulated legal professionals and
from unregulated service providers. As
financial pressures bite on government,
the chances grow that new legislation
may be introduced which could
radically affect the existing regulatory
arrangements.
How the Bar fares will frankly depend
on the robustness and creativity
of its response, the changes which
government and the judiciary will bring
into the administration of justice, the
speed with which consumers seek out
alternative models and the success of
the regulator, I suggest, in holding the
ring.
The outcome will turn on the ability of
the BSB to regulate court advocacy to
high professional and ethical standards
in the public interest, as well as the
ability of the Bar to promote the value
of that.
This is why we are continuing to roll
out our Quality Assurance Scheme
for Advocates, QASA. The recent
challenges ended in a ruling from
the Supreme Court that QASA is
both lawful and proportionate, ie
proportionate both to the risks and to
the evidence. We hope to get it off the
ground in the coming months.
creative ways to do this.
This is just the start: this sort of
engagement with experts, innovators
and key stakeholders is core to the new
way of working at the Bar Standards
Board.
About Sir Andrew Burns KCMG
Sir Andrew Burns joined the BSB as
the Chair on 1 January 2015, following
a long career in the Diplomatic Service.
He was the UK Envoy for PostHolocaust Issues from 2010 to 2015
and was Chair of the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
in 2014/15. His past roles include
British High Commissioner to