The Bar Standards Board is beginning the next phase of its work regarding the Bar transparency rules which came into force in July 2019. This involves ensuring all barristers’ practices comply.
The Bar transparency rules are designed to help the public make informed decisions about barristers’ services and improve the information available to the public before they engage services. The rules require all self-employed barristers, chambers and BSB-regulated entities to publish specified information about their services, including which types of legal service they provide, their most commonly used pricing models and details of their clients’ rights of redress.
This move follows the publishing of a report on the impact of the new rules which shows that while most barristers’ practices have complied with the rules, compliance testing in 2020 and 2021 (which is ongoing) has revealed that there is still a significant minority who were not fully compliant with the rules.