Public Access to a Barrister

Marc Beaumont, a senior Barrister, is well known across the country as a pioneer – and in the view of many people, the pioneer - of the scheme known as Public Access. Marc has been acting for businesses and individuals on a direct basis since the advent of the Public Access scheme in 2004. He remains the foremost promoter of this ground-breaking scheme of access to justice. 

If Marc accepts your case, he will act for you without the need for a solicitor, thereby saving you substantial sums in costs. Despite those costs savings, you will have access to:

• 25 years of experience at the Bar
• expert legal and tactical advice
• expertise in court advocacy in the High Court (Chancery and Queen’s Bench Divisions) and County Court and other tribunals
• expertise in appellate advocacy in the Court of Appeal, Civil Division
• skilled drafting of court documents, such as Skeleton Arguments and pleadings (Particulars of Claim and Defences)
• expert drafting of pre-trial correspondence, including letters before claim and pre-action protocol letters
• a skilled negotiator and Mediator
• someone who will not waste your money
• someone who cares
• someone who fights hard if necessary

You will also retain control and management of your own dispute.

Marc’s authority in this field also derives from his position as:-

• Chairman of the Public Access Bar Association since 2007
• Vice Chairman of the Access to the Bar Committee of the Bar Council since 2008

Marc has made Bar history in this field by:

• moving a visionary Bar Council motion on direct access in 2000, even before the OFT persuaded the Bar Council to adopt such a scheme
• lobbying successfully on the Bar Council for a scheme of direct access to the Bar in the face of firm opposition
• conducting the first ever Public Access instruction at 9 am on the inaugural day of the scheme in 2004
• conducting in 2005 the first ever Public Access case to reach the Court of Appeal.
• being featured  in the national press in 2006 as The Times, "Lawyer of the Week," for having been the first Barrister to conduct a case in the Court of Appeal with a client instructing the Barrister under the Public Access scheme. See the article here.
• campaigning and lobbying for a rule change to permit PA Barristers to correspond for their clients – a key reform that came into force in April 2010.

Marc acts on a Public Access basis in all the work categories listed on this website. Commercial, business, property and public/administrative/education law disputes are well suited to the Public Access scheme. Most professional disciplinary work can be conducted on direct access, as can Mediations.

Much of our work is conducted on a fixed fee basis.

We are not able to accept every case on a Public Access basis.

If you would like a fast appraisal of the suitability of your case for Public Access, please call
01753 839321
for a free initial discussion.

Professional client access

Barristers, Surveyors, Accountants, Architects, Doctors, Dentists, IFAs and members of other recognised professions instruct us directly, without going through a Solicitor. They do so particularly in cases involving professional discipline, click here.

Articles about Direct Access to the Bar

Marc Beaumont is a leading authority on the topic of Public Access (please see his article in the Solicitors' Journal Guide to the Bar of 15.10.05)
For a recent article in Counsel Magazine about Marc Beaumont's Public Access work please click here
For an article by Marc Beaumont advocating reform so as to permit Public Access Barristers to engage in correspondence, click here
For a 2008 article on new business models for the Bar and the Legal Services Act 2007, click here
In November 2008, Marc Beaumont spoke at two of the three events comprising the inaugural Access to the Bar Day ("A2B")
Marc Beaumont has argued that the Bar Public Access scheme benefits solicitors as well as clients: see his article in the Law Society's Gazette [2009] January.