Bar Council chair Maura McGowan QC doesn't think much of the recent Legal Services Board (LSB) report on the Bar's cab rank rule (which basically suggests that the rule which many barristers hold dear to their hearts is more about money than helping people).
Indeed, McGowan thinks so little of the report that she's not sure if it's real, referring to it in inverted commas as a "report" in a letter to members of the Bar published yesterday on the Criminal Bar Association's blog. The Bar Council supremo doesn't stop there, proceeding to take a swipe at the report's authors, Professors John Flood and Morten Hviid...
Here's what McGowan had to say:
This morning on his own blog Flood hit back, pointing out that he and co-author Hviid "tried to find as much evidence as possible [about the cab rank rule]" while "the Bar collects no data on this". He then referred McGowan to the sixth of philosopher Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching:
"Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you."
Expect this one to get nasty heated over the next few months, as the Bar desperately fights to maintain the cab rank rule status quo.