Bar pupils to watch virtual hearings as part of professional development

Pupil barristers will have access to virtual criminal hearings to help them develop their advocacy skills, as part of an observation scheme created by the South Eastern Circuit.

Pupils and junior barristers of three years’ call will be able to observe crown court hearings as part of their professional development because the pandemic has meant there “have been very few opportunities for pupils and junior juniors to watch hearings”.  

The virtual screenings are set to be trialled at Cambridge Crown Court at the end of April, with pupils and junior barristers offered the chance to get involved in question and answer sessions with His Honour Judge Jonathan Cooper. It is hoped that additional Crown courts will also get involved after the pilot sessions in Cambridge, according to the Law Gazette.

Following the increase in virtual hearings as a result of the pandemic, Chancellor of the High Court Sir Julian Flaux expressed his concerns that in five years’ time “new advocates coming up the system with less experience of live hearings might lose the inherent sense of how to behave in court” and so the profession must implement strategies to “guard against unintended consequences of informality”.