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The first is Advocacy for an enormous variety of clients in all courts and tribunals. The second is to provide specialist advice in specific areas of law such as criminal, family or commercial law. The Barristers work comes from solicitors and also from other professionals such as accountants, surveyors, and from foreign lawyers. The principal function of barristers is to appear in court and represent clients and plead their cases and advice generally on legal problems. An essential rule of practice that every barrister complies with is that any work that is offered in a barristers field of practice must be accepted if the barrister is free to take it. Related Occupations to a Barrister would be a Lawyer, Crown Prosecution Service, Solicitor, lawyer, Central government, Lawyer, Magistrates court. The Barristers work involves understanding and interpreting the law, mastering briefs, researching points of law, writing opinions and advising solicitors and other professions. In litigation preparing cases, presenting arguments in court, examining and cross-examining witnesses. The key skills common to all barristers is to absorb information quickly, memorising complex facts and working under pressure. The job requires barristers to like dealing with people and helping them with their problems. The legal profession also requires them to be able to communicate a good standard of spoken and written English as well as able to take on responsibility. A high level of integrity and Discretion is essential as they have access to sensitive information. Typical working hours involves regular unsociable hours. The work place can be court, chambers or home. The work takes place in all major towns. Starting salary range is from £10,000 - £20,000 but at the age of forty the salary can be anywhere in the region of £99,000 - £150,000 the end salary depends on the nature of clients, Legal aid work pays less but earnings in London are likely to be higher. They require an in house computerised database of both reported and unreported cases, which may be searched to enable relevant cases to be identified. E.g. Westminster C.C. v Haywood [1997] 2 All E.R. 84, C.A. The Barrister I interviewed said she would like in future to incorporate a relational database to make storing of data much more convenient and accessible for reference as well as for statistical analyst. Another area she brought up as a concern to her was the financial, marketing, advertising, promotional and casework information management side of her profession. I suggested a computerised system to aid her with her casework and financial management. I suggested that an out of house agency to manage her Marketing, Advertising and promotional information management side of her business. The general information needs of her profession are: Case Information, profession service/details, reports, information and product protection, new laws and legislation in force, client history, and criminal records. Implications for Information Management The Barrister I interview for this assignment expressed a need for assistance in terms of information support. Especially with technology, she told me she lacked sufficient time in her working day and knowledge about computers to make effective use of the resources available. It wasn't possible to take time away from her current work to start learning the very basics of some of the complicated new technology and software available on the market for law professionals. Having someone go and research for me what I want would be a great aid to me in my job. The expense of on-line retrieval databases available commercially to the legal profession cost a great deal more, therefore practitioners tend not to subscribe to on-line services as tariffs charged and the time taken to search puts many practitioners off investing in this new resource. However the advantages of having up-to-date information at the tip of your fingers out weights the disadvantages. Many Organisations have set up business to exploit this niche, by providing a service to solicitors and Barristers with evidence and information to achieve more positive results. An example of a company doing exactly this is called Advanced research Intelligence (ARI) and they help practitioners by providing information on matters like witness statements, financial investigations and evidence analysis amongst other services. The existing provisions for information have been traditionally books that provide comprehensive sources of information to many services available to the legal profession. These and similar publications are distributed free of charge. But the more expensive provision nowadays are on-line databases via the internet and CD-ROMS This will help the Barrister to gain an overview of the main issues in the field and to keep an up-to-date with the current developments. Butterworth’s legal services and law directory Butterworth’s civil litigation service July 1998 Sweet and Maxwell law reference directory Legal Journals covering all aspects of UK and European law Current Law Case Citator - A full judicial history of cases allowing practitioners to track a particular case. Barristers are able to find current legal information and legal research via the Internet which keeps the legal profession up to date with the latest developments in law and gives up to ten years of data and a digest of cases reported as well as law reports for in-depth research. Some of the databases found on the Internet are updated on a daily basis. Electronic books such as Butterworths books on screen have titles like company law handbook are held on separate CD-ROMS which can be accessed using a multimedia PC. The way CD-ROMS work is very similar to a book except you use icons to move around the page It also allows you to skip and search pages much quicker then a normal book. CD-ROMS allow you to search for words or to print out all or small sections of text that you require. Practitioners communicate to one another through many different ways they include Networking through professional organisations/interest groups Teleconferencing (in high profile cases only) The Law Society, The Bar council with the various other profession regulatory bodies including the Legal Service Ombudsman go to great lengths in order to transfer information and provide a service to their members. They go about it using all the above mentioned means. The oldest method being written literature, in the form of journals, newsletters and law magazines. But recently the use of the Internet as a way of transferring information has increased considerably over the years. The best two examples, would be websites run by other law professionals and the regulatory bodies like the Law society which has its site on www.lawsoc.org.uk. The second example is via e-mail and various discussion/news groups set up to encourage discussion amongst the profession. All sources are relatively easy to get hold of. Bibliography: Butterworth’s legal services and law directory Butterworth’s civil litigation service July 1998 Sweet and Maxwell law reference directory Internet - www.Pro-selaw.org/ Law Society – www.lawsoc.org.uk Referral Guide 1998 – B2 LRC TVU Prospect (HE) CD-ROM – LRC Careers guidance service The Legal Profession – www.insidecareers.co.uk GET99 Career Guide – Barristers –P155 www.get.hobsons.com Word Count: 1215
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