Finally, a month and a half after the infamous Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) ethics exam which featured questions from a 2011 past paper, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) has issued a full response to students. Be warned, BSB haters, it's got a shrug-of-the-shoulders feel to it...
It has been a month since the infamous Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) ethics exam, which featured several questions that were "virtually verbatim" to those in this 2011 past paper.
For our report of the story (March 20), the Bar Standards Board (BSB) provided this statement: "We are aware of this very serious issue and are conducting a thorough investigation. It would be inappropriate to comment further until we have completed that process."
Since then, there has been an eerie silence...
As I prepare to commence pupillage at a leading criminal law set in September, the government's assault on the criminal Bar is of great concern to me, writes OccupyTheInns.
Reluctantly, as I have accessed the internet in some very unlikely locations and read the latest developments during a continuing period of travel, I have come to accept that our non-lawyer Lord Chancellor is too out of touch with the workings of the Bar to understand that he is making a grave mistake.
As any lawyer worth their salt knows, the legal aid cuts will cost the taxpayer far, far more than is saved in the short term as thousands of catastrophic litigants in person wreak havoc upon the court system. It is also beyond argument that 'one case one fee' will lead to miscarriage of justice after miscarriage of justice as substandard advocates make blunder after blunder.
However, for a moment set aside the integrity of justice arguments and consider something else...
Exclusive: 24 hours after BPTC students completed Monday's centrally set ethics exam, a mock paper from 2011 was posted on Facebook containing several questions that featured in the assessment they had just sat. The students are not amused... 
Amid all the debate about rising Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) fees and the new pricier-than-expected Bar aptitude test, two obvious points keep being ignored. 1) There has always been a Bar aptitude test (it's called the Inns of Court scholarship application process) – and 2) training to be a barrister is free for those who pass it (via a full Inns of Court scholarship)...
EXCLUSIVE: On Thursday 28 February, six days before Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) offers were due to be made, almost 150 wannabe barristers received an email from BPP informing them that they had places on its course. The Bar Standards Board (BSB) is not amused – with this latest breach of Bar protocol coming just three years after BPP substantially exceeded its allocated number of BPTC places...
The Court of Appeal has dismissed a libel case brought by a pupillage-less Bar graduate against his old university.
Representing himself, Keith Crossland had sued Glamorgan University for comments its staff members made by email when they tried to prevent him doing the second year of a master's degree. Crossland had sought to do the course after he completed the Bar Vocational Course (now known as the BPTC) at the University of the West of England in 2009...
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