Officers of the Bar Council

Sam Townend KC

Sam Townend KC is Chair of the Bar 2024. Sam is a silk at Keating Chambers and practises in domestic and international construction, energy and professional negligence work. He is also a mediator and adjudicator, and a Bencher at Lincoln's Inn. 

Sam was the co-chair of the Bar Council Legal Services Committee in 2022 and has chaired the Bar’s Regulatory Review Working Group. He is a former member of the Young Barristers’ Committee and Treasurer of the Free Representation Unit.

Read about Sam's priorities for 2024 and watch his inaugural address delivered on 9 January at Lincoln's Inn.

Barbara Mills KC

Barbara Mills KC is Vice Chair of the Bar 2024. Barbara is a silk and joint head of chambers at 4PB and practises in family law specialising in difficult and complex children cases, often with an international element. Barbara is an arbitrator and a mediator, sits as a Deputy High Court Judge, and has been a Recorder on the South Eastern Circuit for over ten years. Barbara is also a Governing Bencher at Inner Temple.

Barbara chairs the Bar Council’s Regulatory Review Working Group and has been a member of the Equality, Diversity and Social Mobility Committee and co-chair of the Race Working Group, which published the landmark Race at the Bar report in 2020.

Lorinda Long

Lorinda Long is a qualified barrister with over 20 years’ experience in the Financial Services Sector. She is a Managing Director and Associate General Counsel in the Equities Legal Department at Bank of America, heading up the Cash Equities and Regulatory legal team based in London, providing legal support to the various business lines in Cash Equities, certain Equities Capital Markets and International Banking activities, and other support functions.

Prior to joining Bank of America, Lorinda worked at a number of financial institutions including NatWest Capital Markets, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse and Barclays specialising in securitisation and debt capital markets. She spent several years as the General Counsel of the Treasury Division at HBOS with responsibility for managing and building a legal department of more than 30 people to provide legal support to the Treasury Division’s businesses globally.

Lorinda was previously Treasurer of the Bar Council from 2015 to 2019.

Amrit Kaur Dhanoa

Amrit is Chair of the Bar Council's Young Barristers’ Committee for 2024. She is also a member of the Bar Council’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Panel and the Bar European Group.

Amrit practises from 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square and has a particular focus on commercial litigation and mediation, international arbitration, public and regulatory law.