3rdSix.co.uk is a recruitment site for Chambers and newly qualified Barristers
who have not secured a tenancy. Each year 1500 students undertake the bar vocational course but
there are only 1,000 pupillages offered by chambers per year and only 500 new tenancies.
The site was developed to address the difficulties in recruiting 3rd six pupils / squatters,
given that traditional recruitment methods are very expensive and more often than not, unsuccessful primarily
due to accessing target audiences.
Daniel Barnett, a leading employment law barrister,
owns a company which supplies and distributes own-branded employment law bulletins for solicitors’ firms
to help them generate work and attract new clients. The bulletins are individually branded for the solicitors’
firm and the content can be changed or added to before any bulletin is sent out. All the nitty gritty work in
maintaining the email lists is handled by Daniel’s team.
BarristerWeb offer a clerking service to barristers.
They operate with approximately 70 Barristers.
Bar Squared provide a software product called LEX Chambers Management –
a complete software solution for Barristers Chambers. Bar Squared is the latest entrant to the market
but employs an experienced team combining clerks and software developers. LEX runs through Microsoft
SQL server and Internet Explorer so is quick to deploy and can be used easily whether in chambers or remotely.
LEX offers: Multi-view Diary – Case Management – Fees and Billing – Graduated Fees - Workflow –
Drill Through Reporting – Marketing – CRM (client and prospective solicitors) - Solicitor profiling –
Mail Merge - Campaign Management – Diary to Exchange to Blackberry/Windows Mobile – Practice Analysis –
Document Management – Time Recording – LEX for Mobile IE – System Resilience.
As of August 2009, LEX has now been successfully installed at 44 Chambers across the UK since
its release in January 2007, with a further 17 Chambers currently awaiting deployment.
Brief Counsel Ltd is a new service in the Irish legal services
marketplace that helps Irish solicitors select and manage Irish barristers.
The company (set up by a barrister and an Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year winner) finds solicitors
the most appropriate barrister for their case from all 2,100-plus barristers currently practicing in Ireland.
The company can get competitive tenders from multiple barristers, find the best barrister for the fee proposed
by the solicitor, and guarantee service standards such as deadlines for written work by counsel. The company’s services,
which are free of charge for solicitors, are complementary to those of the Law Library and have been operating successfully
since 2008 on a pilot basis with selected solicitors and barristers before going public recently following regulatory
clearance for the business. Brief Counsel Ltd says that it is always happy to hear from non-Irish lawyers and
professional clients seeking the services of Irish barristers.
Chambers People is a specialist staff recruitment and
consultancy providing a range of services for Barristers' Chambers. They are based in Fleet Street but
provide services to barristers chambers not only in London but also in every major town or city in England and Wales.
As well as all types of staff recruitment, they provide staff training (one to one, or group training),
business development and assistance with marketing, fee collection and credit control work .
Clerksroom is the administrative hub of a nationwide
Barristers Chambers with meeting & mediation facilities in London, Manchester and Taunton (where the team of
16 staff are located). They offer a national service with a single point of contact.
There are 57 Barristers (including 3 Queen's Counsel) who undertake private client Civil and Family work at
all UK courts & tribunals.
Fixed Fees in London County Courts can be provided by
4 King’s Bench Walk, the Chambers of Timothy Raggatt QC.
Chambers offers solicitors fixed fee representation by barristers in hearings before District Judges
in the London county courts. Typical rates are £80 for a mortgage possession hearing or a charging order,
£100 for an application listed to last up to 30 minutes and £150 for a small claims trial.
There is no VAT or disbursements on top. Full details are on the website and bookings can be made by
telephone or email.
InQuisita Law, now acquired by Iris, offers a comprehensive chambers management solution for chambers.
It was launched as a new entrant to the barristers market in 2003/2004, designed from the ground-up in
collaboration with a number of users to anticipate the changing and increasingly demanding needs of a modern chambers.
There are now around 40 chambers who use the InQuisita software.
The system is a browser based application enabling simplistic support and
upgrading and offers both fee notes and invoice processing in multi-currency for case billing.
InQuisita Law is also available with a CRM component, can be fully integrated with Exchange for Outlook
users, has the option for an online data security service called IQ Guardian and is provided as
standard with a contractual SLA for the support services.
Iris Meridian Connect is
chambers management software for barristers and clerks providing software for 90% of chambers. The system
offers billing and cash collection through automated workflows, the ability for barristers to access
information at any time from any location, configurable diary and case management,
defined and measured KPIs and reporting procedures and excellent management of cases and diaries.
Instruct Us Now Ltd, based in Edinburgh, organise Counsel for
Scottish Solicitors. They are not a Stable or Chamber and have no ties to any particular Counsel but have
contacts with a broad pool of experienced Counsel.
They organise all types of civil litigation (not just personal injury work). They can also organise Counsel
pre-litigation, in the Court of Session and in Sheriff Courts throughout Scotland.
The company is run by Gordon Stead who worked as a litigation solicitor for over 10 years.
LawComms specialises in marketing communications for barristers.
The company is run by Gerald Newman, formerly a practising solicitor
and also Practice Director in a leading set in the Temple. Online news and other web content are the main specialisms,
along with media relations and e-marketing - the website offers extensive free guides on all these topics.
Professional profiles are written and updated, and seminar notes turned into articles for publication.
Support is provided for web-site development, online news and media relations, marketing strategy, and training.
Note to barristers who are selling legal services from their web site or companies
providing IT and marketing services to barristers - let me know
and I will add you to this list! No charge for this.
email
delia@venables.co.uk
IT Support and Marketing Services Relating to Barristers