If you are a barrister or a BSB-regulated entity, you are required by the BSB Handbook to report or tell us certain things.
Barristers and bankruptcy
You have a duty to report to us if you are subject to a bankruptcy order or if you enter into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA).
Notification of associations with others
You are required to notify us if you enter into an association, such as sharing premises or costs with a person or body not regulated by us.
Anti-money laundering
Barristers, chambers, and BSB-regulated entities need to be aware of the risk of becoming involved in money laundering and/or terrorist financing.
Public and Licensed Access
The Public and Licensed Access schemes allow lay clients to instruct barristers directly without first instructing a solicitor or other lawyer. Find out more about your obligations if you do Public or Licensed Access work.
Transparency rules
We brought new transparency rules into force on 1 July 2019, with an implementation period until January 2020. The rules will help consumers understand the price and service they will receive, what redress is available and the regulatory status of their provider.
Youth Court work
If you are a barrister or a pupil undertaking, or intending to undertake, work in the Youth Court, you are required to declare that you are competent to do so.
Reporting serious misconduct
You have a duty to report your own serious misconduct or that of another barrister to us. To find out more about this, visit our page on reporting serious misconduct.
The BSB Handbook remains the definitive guide of what to tell us, but this page aims to provide a summary of the most common matters which should be reported.
For barristers
As an individual barrister, you should report:
- your own serious misconduct (see rule rC65 and associated guidance) using our reporting form;
- the serious misconduct of others (see rule rC66) using our reporting form;
- if you are in an association with others (see rC80) using our reporting form;
- if you are made bankrupt or have bankruptcy proceedings initiated (see rC65) using our reporting form; you are also required to report various other insolvency matters.
- if you are disqualified from being a director. (rC65)
- if another regulator takes action against you (rC65)
- if you undertake work in the Youth Court, you are required to declare that you are competent to do so. You can inform us by updating your details in MyBar;
- when a piece of information we collect at Authorisation to Practise changes; for example, if you move where you practice from. You must promptly update your details through MyBar.
This list is not exhaustive. As a barrister it is your responsibility to know what information you are required to report to us.
For Entities
Entities have additional requirements to report any material changes to the entity. For example, whether the number of owners or managers in your entity has changed. You can update your details by emailing [email protected].
What to expect when reporting yourself or another
If you report your own conduct, or the conduct of another barrister to us, a member of our Contact and Assessment Team will assess the information. They may contact you if they require more information to complete their assessment.
We assess information to decide the risk it presents. Depending on the level of risk, we can take different types of action. Action we take can include:
- sending an informal letter (for example, telling you, or another barrister, to stop doing something, or start doing something);
- working with organisations or individuals to rectify something;
- carrying out a formal investigation into the conduct. This may result in a referral to our Independent Decision Making Body or the issuing of a fine.
Read more about how we deal with reports of concerns about barristers and our approach to supervision.
We may also decide to take no action at a particular time.
Barristers and Bankruptcy
You have a duty to report to us if yout are subject to a bankruptcy order or if you enter into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA)
Under Rule C65.6 of the Code of Conduct in the BSB Handbook, whether you are practising or not, you are required to report promptly to us if:
- bankruptcy proceedings or directors disqualification proceedings are initiated against you;
- a bankruptcy order or directors disqualification order is made against you; or
- you enter into an IVA with your creditors.
Entering into an IVA or being subject to a bankruptcy order is not in itself a disciplinary offence or a bar to practising; however, failure to promptly report these circumstances to us, or failure to keep the us updated after reporting, may give rise to disciplinary proceedings.
If you are subject to a bankruptcy order or enter an IVA, you should report this using our online reporting form.
Notification of association with others
The BSB Handbook defines an association as follows: "BSB authorised persons are sharing premises and/or costs and/or using a common vehicle for obtaining or distributing work with any person other than a BSB regulated person, in a manner which does not require the association to be authorised as an entity under the Legal Services Act 2007."
Typical examples of associations are:
- a BSB authorised body who operate in the same building as a non-authorised body and share costs with them;
- a set of chambers who allow regular use of chambers’ facilities to non-authorised individuals for business purposes;
- an authorised body who use another company for services such as advertising, call handling etc; and
- a barrister who works in the same premises as a non-authorised body and shares costs, or a barrister who uses a non-authorised body to obtain business.
If you are in an association on more than a one-off basis then you are required to notify us in accordance with rule rc80 of the BSB handbook. You can report this through our online reporting form.
Supervision of an immigration adviser
Where you enter into an arrangement to supervise an immigration adviser, this will be classed as an association.
You must provide details of your supervision arrangements by completing the Immigration Advisers Associations Form. You can access the form.
Once you have completed the form email it to:
- the BSB’s Supervision team at [email protected] if you are a self-employed barrister; or
- the BSB’s Entity Regulation team at [email protected] if you are a BSB entity.
You should read our Barristers Supervising Immigration Advisers Guidance before completing this form.
Registration of youth court work
Youth Proceedings competences
We consider Youth Court work to be a high-risk area of work following our Youth Proceedings Advocacy Review in 2015 . This Review found that standards of advocacy in the Youth Court were variable and as a result the interests of some of the most vulnerable people within the criminal justice system were not being adequately represented.
As a response to the Review, we published the Youth Proceedings competences and introduced a change to the Handbook. Rule S59 requires barrister and pupils working in the Youth Court to register that with us and declare that they have the specialist skills, knowledge and attributes necessary to work effectively with young people, as set out in the Youth Proceedings competences and guidance.
Requirements for Barristers, pupils and AETOs
If you a barrister who works in the Youth Court or intend to do so in the next 12 months, you are required to declare this at Authorisation to Practise. You may register and unregister at any time through the MyBar portal. Registration appears publicly against your name on our Barristers' Register.
If you are a pupil intending to undertake work in the Youth Court during your practising period of your pupillage, you are required to register this. You are asked to make this declaration when you register for your Provisional Practising Certificate. You can register, or unregister, at any time by emailing [email protected].
It is important to remember that by declaring yourself as intending to do the work, as a pupil, you are declaring that you meet the requirements set out within the competences. This does not mean that you are competent to undertake any case in the Youth Court, simply that you meet the competences as they apply to the cases in which you are likely to be instructed.
If you are an Authorised Education and Training Organisation (AETO), you should ensure that your training programme is designed to enable pupils to meet the Youth Proceedings competences where relevant.
If you declare that you do work in the Youth Court, you may be subject to spot-checks to ensure that you meet the competences.
Making a report about poor performance
If you see something happening in the Youth Court which you think does not meet the Youth Proceedings Competences, or you are not sure whether it does, you should contact us. Your report will be considered by our Contact and Assessment Team and wherever possible, we will work with barristers to improve their performance.
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