10 January 2024
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The Bar Council’s two main aims for this year are securing more resources for the justice system and creating a more resilient and sustainable profession, Chair Sam Townend KC said in his inaugural speech this week
Townend, (pictured) an international construction, energy and professional negligence silk at Keating Chambers, vowed to take action against unfair treatment, bullying, discrimination and harassment at the Bar.
He pointed to a ‘chronic decline’ in the family justice system since 2013, when LASPO (the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012) ‘extinguished the availability of legal aid for most family law litigants who previously qualified’.
He also called for ‘urgent’ investment in the criminal justice system, pointing out that more than one in six trials are ineffective, partly due to a lack of available barristers, while the Crown Court caseload is the largest it has ever been (66,547).
