Learn More About Us

The work we do

At the Bar Standards Board, we are dedicated to ensuring that barristers in England and Wales adhere to high professional standards, promote equality and diversity, and maintain public confidence in the legal system.

Transparent Governance

Proactive Regulation

Stakeholder Collaboration

Discover Opportunities

The Regulatory Objectives

In discharging our regulatory functions, we seek to meet the Regulatory Objectives which are set out in the Legal Services Act 2007. We share them with the other legal services regulators

Who we regulate

We regulate practising barristers, pupils, unregistered barristers, certain specialised legal services businesses (known as BSB entities) and European lawyers registered with us. Select from the below to find out more.

Working for BSB

We are always keen to employ talented and highly motivated people at all levels who feel they can contribute to the future success of the Bar Standards Board. In return we offer an attractive salary and benefits package and a supportive, inclusive working environment based on our organisational values. Our people value our friendly and respectful environment, our support for flexible working, the opportunity to have a high degree of impact and our interesting, challenging and varied work. We run an on going programme of learning and inclusion events and encourage our people to learn and develop in their roles.

Our Governance

The Bar Standards Board is the regulatory arm of the Bar Council, which is the Approved Regulator under the Legal Services Act 2007. We have several governance documents that explain more about how we are governed and how our Board makes its decisions

Equality and Diversity

As the regulator of the Bar of England and Wales, we have a statutory regulatory objective to “encourage an independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession” (The Legal Services Act 2007). We also have obligations under the Equality Act 2010.

We aim to ensure meaningful compliance with our equality duties in every aspect of our work, to demonstrate best equalities and anti-discrimination practice, and to embed equality and fairness into the day-to-day running of our organisation.

A risk based approach

Our risk-based approach to regulation

The administration of justice and the rule of law are vital to all of us in society. The rule of law is what enables us to protect our rights as citizens and to hold one another to account.

Barristers play a pivotal role in the justice system in England and Wales, so enabling people to seek access to justice and setting the standards of service provided by barristers is central to our purposes as a regulator.

Risk-based regulation is our way of thinking about what can go wrong in the legal services market, assessing how likely this is, and prioritising what we do either to prevent it from happening in the first place or to reduce the impact if it does go wrong.

We are currently implementing an exciting programme of reform to further develop our approach to regulatory risk as we seek to be best in class in this area.

Working with others

We work collaboratively with other agencies to ensure effective regulation of the Bar in the public interest.

Memoranda of Understanding

We have formalised our relationship with many other organisations by signing Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs). In the interests of transparency, you can download our current MOUs

Our Statistics

Explore our key statistics that reflect our regulatory impact and commitment to excellence and accountability.

Over 500 barristers regulated

100% compliance in annual assessments

80% satisfaction rate from regulated professionals

95% of clients report trust in barrister services

Statistics about the Bar

Statistics on practicing barristers

Barristers in England and Wales are specialist advocates and advisers who provide expert legal services when representing their lay and professional clients in courts and other legal contexts.

Barristers are entitled to hold a Practising Certificate upon their successful completion of pupillage. This is renewed annually and grants them the right to practise as barristers. All barristers with Practising Certificates may work as self-employed barristers, employed barristers or as dual practitioners. The majority are self-employed.

The following charts represent a snapshot of practising barristers as of 1 December in the years presented, except for the chart on all called to the Bar during the year.

Chambers statistics

Chambers are offices from which self-employed barristers practise, often sharing administrative teams and other office costs. Newly called barristers wanting to pursue self-employed practice seek "pupillage" within chambers, during which time they are supervised by a more senior barrister and may start to take on cases.

The below chart represents a snapshot of the number of chambers with more than one practising barrister (including where barristers are practising from the chambers as a secondary address) as of 1 December in each year.

Stakeholder Collaboration

We work collaboratively with stakeholders to improve the regulatory landscape for barristers.