Barristers’ chambers can be complex places these days. When Paul Shrubsall, now Senior Clerk at One Essex Court, first started as a clerk the then senior clerk of his set in Lincoln’s Inn set used to “pay all the chambers’ running expenses for the month out of his own pocket, jot them down on a small piece of paper and seek reimbursement from members of chambers at the end of each month.” Things have certainly changed since then. Some sets now have up to 30 support staff which in addition to clerks may include a finance director, marketing manager, IT manager, librarian and paralegals. Chambers have to come up with business plans, marketing strategies, HR policies, committee structures, complaints procedures, consider the issue of mergers and de-mergers, tender for work and engage with issues such as those raised by the Clementi Report.

Against this background of increasing complexity we have seen the introduction, in some chambers at least, of the chambers chief executive. One of the first of them was Christine Kings of Doughty Street. She was brought in from day one of the set’s existence fifteen years ago and has been integral to the development of it since. With a background in local government and as an organiser for the CND she had very little experience of the law and almost none of how barristers’ chambers operated. But she was committed to the principles of good service, human rights and pro-bono upon which the set was founded and she set about making sure those principles informed the daily life of the set as much as possible. The set almost instantly started breaking new ground in terms of the way it was being administered.

A systematic process of acquiring feedback from solicitors was implemented which was somewhat radical at the time but is becoming increasingly commonplace now. A disciplinary policy which applied to barristers as well as other staff was also introduced which included penalties ranging from a fine for not returning a form on time to suspension from chambers for graver offences. Where appropriate staff vacancies in chambers were filled by members of disadvantaged groups in society such as ex-prisoners, those recovering from mental illness and asylum seekers. The set also now employs a full-time human rights co-ordinator. With 89 barristers and a host of awards Doughty Street appears to be thriving but Kings points out “that the journey has not been without its battles.”

Some barristers have found the progressive culture a shock. She remembers one member of chambers being particularly miffed when told that a clerk would not be available as requested to assist him robe up before court. She also faced considerable hostility in the early days from some of the senior clerks at other chambers. She recalls being stopped by a clerk one day when walking down the street and being asked whether she was “that woman from Doughty Street?” When she owned up she was promptly spat upon. At about the same time as King’s appointment at Doughty Street David Douglas was appointed to Littleton Chambers as chief executive after a career as a regional director responsible for 1500 Whitbread pubs.

Unlike Doughty Street Littleton Chambers was an established set and Douglas was appointed following the then senior clerk’s decision to step aside from the role of senior clerk for personal reasons. Instead of replacing the senior clerk with another clerk the set decided to appoint Douglas to the newly created role of chief executive. A team of clerks does the clerking with no one having the title of senior clerk, that title is reserved for Douglas although he doesn’t use it. One of the first things that Alex Douglas did when he took the post was to apply to the Institute of Barristers Clerks for membership. He remembers telephoning Paul Shrubsall and asking whether he could join. Shrubsall was delighted with the idea but said the other clerks might take a bit of persuading. But persuaded they were and he eventually became a member.

The case of Littleton Chambers where there is no senior clerk as such can be contrasted with Serle Court where there are three. The other interesting thing about Serle Court is the fact that at that set although the senior clerks work closely with the chief executive they do not report to her but to the chambers management committee. The norm tends to be however that the chief executive’s remit does include responsibility for the clerks, as is the case at Matrix, Maitland and Hardwicke and a number of other sets. The relationship between chief executives and senior clerks where they co-exist together in the same set is an interesting one. There are plenty of well-documented cases where the relationship has ended with a duel and one or the other being a casualty but more often than not now the two species live in relative harmony.

There are of course a number of thriving sets where there is no chief executive or where the senior clerk has adopted the role in practise if not in name. Wilberforce is an interesting case in point. The set by all accounts had a very successful appointment in Suzanne Cosgrove who took the role for five years starting in1996. She had a background as an NHS manager and in the words of the present senior clerk of the chambers “pulled together a lot of loose strings at the set at gave it coherence.” This involved developing a clear strategy for the set, putting place effective human resource policies and implementing a marketing programme. During her tenure the senior clerk, Declan Redmond, by his own admission learnt a tremendous amount from her, which enabled him to take over the role of chief executive himself eventually.

He now styles himself as both senior clerk and chief executive. He takes a very pragmatic approach to the whole idea of the role. He appreciated the need for an outsider to come in when they did and take a fresh look at the set introduce some important reforms. But with the reforms in place and a proper support structure, which includes a finance manager, and marketing assistant he feels is well able to combine the roll of chief executive with a significant amount of traditional clerking. Similarly at Brick Court, Ian Moyler and his colleague Julian Hawes are examples of senior clerks who combine the running of chambers in all its multifariousness with traditional clerking. Moyler acknowledges that the running of chambers is becoming an increasingly complex process but as is the case at Wilberforce he has a small army of support stuff including a chambers administrator, IT manager and marketing officer to help Brick Court run smoothly.

Another successful double act, perhaps the most successful in recent times, is that of Paul Shrubsall and Robert Ralphs, the joint-senior clerks of One Essex Court. Ralphs is retiring this year leaving Shrubsall alone at the helm. Shrubsall is not sure whether he needs the name of chief executive but is quite clear that he essentially fulfils the role. But he too intends to keep his hand in clerking albeit in a small way. He takes great deal of time and effort in developing and nurturing the talent in the clerks room at One Essex Court and elsewhere in the knowledge that the young clerks of today may very well end up as tomorrow’s chief executives.

It is difficult to predict with too much certainty what the future holds as far as chambers administration is concerned. What can almost certainly be said is that the days of the senior clerk single-handedly running all the support functions (finance, marketing, IT etc) of chambers are fast coming to an end if they have not already ended. If a senior clerk is going to continue clerking as well as running chambers it would seem that they would have to have a support network consisting of at least a financial manager and some sort of administrator and probably an IT manager and a marketing assistant as well.

The either/or debate over whether there is a future for chief executives and senior clerks also seems to have ended. Both of these groups have learnt to respect each other and have acknowledged that both roles are here to stay. The adoption of the title of chief executive by a number of senior clerks is significant in this respect. In chambers such as Matrix and Doughty Street, which are built on the premise of bold new approaches it seems natural that chief executives at those sets come to them from outside the profession.

In other more staid, but by no means less successful sets such as One Essex Court and Brick Court radical, bold new approaches are perhaps not what are called in which case senior clerks maybe better suited to leading the chambers’ practise management. For the foreseeable future sets will be run by a variety of people from outside the clerking profession as well by clerks who have risen up the ranks. It is a good thing for the clerking profession that there are examples of senior clerks as chief executive and it was wrong that they should ever have thought those positions were not open to them. I think it likely that there will be more situations similar to Wilberforce where a chief executive from outside the profession was followed by an insider so to speak and vice versa. The onus is on the present generation of young clerks to take the initiative and acquire the training and experience that will equip them for senior roles in due course.

It was interesting speaking to solicitors at law firms about the whole issue of chief executives and how barristers’ chambers were run generally. The message from them is perhaps best exemplified by the comments of Andrea Kennedy of Slaughter and May: “excellent service is what counts, and that is what will make us use a set again and again, it is as simple as that.”

There is definitely a growing awareness amongst those who are running barristers’ chambers of the need to focus on good service. It is that quest which is driving many of the changes that are taking place in chambers administration whether they be improved training for clerks, better information technology or simply hurrying up barristers when it comes to getting their opinions written. There are a significant number of barristers, solicitors, clerks and chief executives who are passionate about improving the way chambers are run and as a consequence the future bodes well I think for the bar as a whole.

Adam Cooke, editor, Linex Legal
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