New Bar Council chair Kirsty Brimelow KC outlines her 2026 priorities

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Newly appointed Bar Council chair Kirsty Brimelow KC delivered her inaugural address at Gray’s Inn, outlining her key priorities for the year ahead, with a strong emphasis on improving access to justice.

Brimelow is the former chair of both the Criminal Bar Association and the Bar Human Rights Committee, and succeeds Barbara Mills KC as chair of the Bar Council. Brimelow described her appointment as “both an honour and a responsibility”, pledging to bring “cross-jurisdictional expertise” to overcome challenges facing the profession. She set out her aims to “embrace opportunities for barristers and people” and deliver better access to justice.

The government’s proposals to restrict jury trials was a key focus. She warned: “There is much to do to recover our criminal justice system. The latest government proposals restricting jury trials will not reduce the backlog of cases, built up over years of financial slash and burn of the criminal justice system, but may further erode trust which hangs by the thread of citizen participation in the criminal courts.”

To address court backlogs, Brimelow highlighted the importance of urgent, practical reforms, including intense case management. She stated that: “Successful reduction of the backlog can be seen in courts where there has been pro-active triaging of cases led by the [Crown Prosecution Service] and police and opening the courts that continue to sit empty by removing the cap on sitting days. If we can implement these reforms in the courts, and have every court room sitting, we can reduce the backlog.”

She drew attention to the delays caused by prisoner transport failures, noting that, despite the high cost of current contracts, “hours are lost in courts each day due to prisoners not being brought to court on time and when at court, not taken up into the dock due to lack of staff”.

She emphasised the declining number of lawyers undertaking legal aid work, making it significantly harder for people to obtain timely legal advice. In her speech, she pledged to bring legal aid “back into sharp focus in 2026”.

Brimelow also touched on a range of other areas. She confirmed that a new commissioner for conduct would soon be appointed as part of efforts to tackle bullying and harassment at the bar. She also stressed the importance of ensuring a safe working environment for all barristers, particularly junior lawyers and those entering the profession. Other areas she highlighted included:

• social mobility and disability;
• protection of lawyers;
• improving billing practices at the self-employed bar;
• reducing violence against women and girls;
• children in the justice system;
• commercial and arbitration work; and
• nature, the environment and conflict resolution.

Brimelow is an experienced and award-winning barrister, who has been active in Bar governance and played a central role in securing significant fee increases for criminal barristers in 2022. Her career includes judicial appointments as a deputy high court judge and recorder, as well as wide‑ranging human rights work, from contributing to the Colombian peace process to helping shape UK female genital mutilation protection orders and Denmark’s consent‑based sexual offences law. She’s a bencher of Gray’s Inn, a trustee of WWF UK and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.