HOW CAN YOUR BARRISTER HELP YOU AS A LITIGANT IN PERSON?

DIRECT PUBLIC ACCESS GUIDANCE

POSSIBLE CASES WHICH ARE UNSUITABLE FOR LITIGANTS IN PERSON

Not all family law cases are appropriate for a litigant in person: if you don’t really know what you want, or if your case is complicated and involves collecting evidence from various witnesses or taking opinions from a number of experts, where it involves high volume of correspondence between the parties and there are costs in the case.

Also, if you would prefer to hand over the case for someone else to look after all of the administrative requirements for you, a solicitor is a better option because working with a barrister will require you to be able to take on the administration of the case yourself (with the barrister’s guidance). For such cases it may not be appropriate to use a direct public access barrister as most do not have conduct of litigation and cannot act on your behalf but can represent you in court.

REGULATED BY THE BAR STANDARDS BOARD

Direct Access barristers are regulated by the Bar Council and the Bar Standards Board and have strict professional rules by which they abide, giving you the benefit of consumer protection and the backing of a professional conduct regime built up over centuries. 

Only the barristers who have achieved a specialist direct access qualification are allowed to work directly with clients.

If you would like more information about how a public access barrister could work with you directly, and/or the Bar Standards Board Handbook – Public Access Guidance for Lay Clients prepared by Bar Standards Board – please click the link .