Changing Landscape and Workplace productivity at the Criminal Bar
‘Crime Overview’ is a rather broad remit for this first Legal 500 article, not least when there has been considerable change at the Criminal Bar, most especially over the last 5 years.
It’s not intended that observation below be a heresy to the usual hell-in-a-handcart orthodoxy, The Bar Council’s own findings (‘
The Bar in Numbers’), asserts that the number of practising barristers in England and Wales has grown substantially over the past 35 years, almost doubling in size since 1990/91 - there were just 9,541 barristers …today there are 17,864 barristers practising in England and Wales … and the Young Bar (those under 7 years’ Call) making up almost 23% of the profession’. A recent CBA survey said, ‘one in three criminal barristers is actively considering moving their practice into another discipline.’
Buried beneath those numbers are telling threads concerning social mobility, gender, and relative income, but this article addresses change from the perspective of the Bar’s core operational unit – criminal barristers’ chambers.
Brailsford’s aggregation of marginal gains is the philosophy of achieving a 1% margin for improvement in everything you do. This principle suggests that while individual, tiny enhancements may seem insignificant on their own, their cumulative effect results in significant change. Some hard-bitten practitioners may define progress thus as just another name for making the same mistakes with fancier technology. And whilst two steps forwards and one step backwards may equally seem like a Cha-Cha to the criminal Bar’s optimists, there is a wide range of factors that coalesce to form the present Chambers landscape. This is an attempt to describe a Venn diagram of the market, financial, IT and data management, marketing and risk mitigation – and their impacts on the criminal Bar. As will all businesses, no one aspect of practice management can be taken in isolation.
Defining the model of a set of barristers’ chambers is tricky. Most barristers tacitly accept the platitude, worn as thin as a bishop’s rug, that a set of barristers Chambers is less of a taxi that delivers them to their front door direct: rather, it is a bus that delivers the collective to the general direction of where they want to travel (though best not extend the analogy to include tired, drunk and smelly passengers.) That bus also manages a great deal of their finance, facilities, marketing and brand. Tied in with that, is there any other industry sector where the business brand names are almost invariably named after their office address? Note also that, after salaries, the biggest cost to any criminal practice is accommodation.
Other than Caselines in 2015 (‘CCDCS’), I sense it was change in working culture post-pandemic (rather than available technology itself) that has enabled sets, now with remotely hosted platforms, to be more portable and downsize their footprint and costs. These include Furnival, 23 Essex St, much of Bedford Row (one of which is now over a Chancery Lane pub) and recently Garden Court. Players within the industry sector have either adapted quickly and dynamically some 5 years ago or are now having circumstance impose change upon them – despite the tired maxim that waiting until change is forced upon you is far riskier than initiating it yourself. Location move also affords greater licence to start afresh, and those who have had to manage change in the same building face far greater challenges (e.g. Cloisters,
here.), although they don’t have to achieve the Goldilocks brand balance of location, character, cost and only address and spec.
Consequently, there has also been a race downwards in practitioners’ cost of practice at the criminal Bar – soon to be gone are the days where a practitioner saw ca. 20 % of their income swallowed up in ‘clerks’ fees’, as the peace dividend of lower operating cost manifests itself. Those numbers are nearer 10% - or even lower (email me …) Inevitably, there has been a trend for individuals who have a portable practice to reduce their cost of practice in those sets (though it should be recognised, there are emphatically many factors beyond cost that prompt migration. But it helps.)
Practitioners
like coming into a tidy, clean space, and an environment they can be confident that they can take their clients in – though the reality of MS Teams means that less than 10% of our 1,200 client-facing meetings per year are in-person, in Chambers. Key disciplines (and welcome to the fast-paced and glamorous world of Chambers admin) include a well-maintained confidential waste process, featuring the right location of storage - if any, given the vast majority of case material is now digital - and a purge of hard copy (dependent on data retention policy and billing.) Also, barristers can be guilty of fly-tipping old briefs. Equally, Wifi that makes your ears sing, and as strong as the output of a really good coffee machine, is invaluable. Printing facility can be hugely reduced and designed to scan hard copy direct to a secure digital platform.
None of which is especially difficult, given how few people come to a typical Chambers during a working day. Much has been made of the informal, pastoral care that used to exist (and helpfully: usually an autumnal, leathery and dusty junior in matching wingback armchair). Furnival has structured pupil advocacy training every week but also ensure that there is a nod to a social side – however artificial the structure. Furthermore, it may well be that the best plans are often the ones you didn't make, but impromptu parties demand a default of well-stocked cellar and fridge. Life can be what happens when you’re busy making other plans.
Technology and changing working practices may enable a squaring of the circle of smaller footprint v operational effectiveness v brand (Ok, that’s a triangle) but planning and ergonomics play a part. The Junior Bar especially is benefiting financially by squaring another circle: the increased market demand with the backlog in the criminal courts and the consequent removal of the cap on sitting days in the Crown Court. It is largely technology (for the lucky who have access
and are prepared to use it) that has enabled higher case load and allied improved output in quality. More here on
opportunities and threats of AI within the sector (with apologies for animal simile and metaphor.) It is accepted that video technology and shared data platforms save time, money and effort inherent in travel, and again counsel are able to focus more on service provision. Defining, managing and exploiting such factors of change are key to productivity, both in quality of service and practice profitability.
The blood that flows through any business is money and now learning AI platforms have at least halved accounting time – though I rather miss the relatively Dickensian process of bank reconciliations with Sage Line 50 and spreadsheets. That said, I also miss the days when my biggest problem was which crayon to eat first.
Modern Chambers are, usually unconsciously, becoming a shared space, serving chiefly as an administrative and training hub – emphatically still a focal point, tied in with the brand. Barristers will buy into that communality more readily if their cost of practice is lower, that cost/benefit also scotching any sense of entitlement, ownership or propriety. The decision to down-size the operation provides a huge opportunity to discard legacy systems ("old stuff that still somehow runs the entire company”), redundant hardware and comms, rodents and, let’s be honest, the inevitable paper. Avoid the allied ‘documentation paradox’: the older the system, the more critical it is, and the less anyone knows how it works. (Usually a fees clerk, and they won’t tell you.) Binning in-house hard drives and moving to remotely hosted and resilient data resource is a huge subject with considerable risk management benefit – just to touch on the issue: chambers managers will be aware of the ‘PICNIC’ acronym: problem in chair, not in computer. Training and regulatory adherence is a default – encrypt those laptops, use compliant data sharing platforms, never use unencrypted USBs (though the LAA love them). At Furnival we engage in ethical hacking, as awareness is key. More geometry: managers are keenly aware of the inverted management pyramid that is Chambers: they (the barristers) employ
us to manage
them. In-house ‘hacking’ of your employers therefore feels counter intuitive. However, the game of entrapment is often seen as entertaining by the membership, and you may also discover how easy it is to access an email account ‘protected’ by MS Authenticator. Raising awareness is key, and sobering – 10% of staff and MoC
will happily bosh their credentials into the internet.
For some, progress might have been all right once but has now gone on too long. However, the principles and specific duties of the criminal Bar remain – independence, integrity, duty to the court, client interest, confidentiality and competence will remain but are now enhanced.
Julian Bradley
Chambers Manager
Furnival Chambers
15 May 2026