The new Chair of the Bar, Kirsty Brimelow KC, has set out her priorities for 2026 in her inaugural address at Gray’s Inn (on Monday 12 January) focusing on protecting jury trials, increasing legal aid investment across jurisdictions, and justice and children.
Kirsty Brimelow KC – a former Chair of the Criminal Bar Association and the Bar Human Rights Committee set out her first priority as tackling the crisis in the criminal courts and legally aided Bar, where she is working “hand in hand with Circuit Leaders and the Criminal Bar Association”.
She said: “I am leading the Bar Council’s stance against the government proposals to reduce jury trials. The opposition is principled and pragmatic.”
“The constitutional principle is deep, with its importance being cemented in 1670 when Edward Bushel and his fellow jurors, a disinterested group of property owners, would rather have gone to prison than convict the Quakers Penn and Mead of causing tumultuous assembly by preaching in Gracechurch Street.
“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.
“The pragmatic points are that the reduction of juries would have no impact on the existing backlog as it would take effect towards the end of this Parliament. Impact even then is highly uncertain. Meanwhile energy and focus are drained from implementing the urgent reforms now that would decrease the backlog. These include intense case management: successful reduction of the backlog can be seen in courts where there has been pro-active triaging of cases led by CPS 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 raised concerns about the impact prisoner transport contracts on delays. She said: “The call for prisoner escort and custody service reform is the whine that became a roar. The combined value of the two contracts, for north and south, is nearly £1.4 billion. The annual cost is around £138 million. And yet 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.”
On legal aid, Kirsty pledged to focus on legal aid across all jurisdictions: “Legal aid is back in sharp focus in 2026.”
On criminal legal aid she said: “Properly resourcing the publicly funded Bar remains at the heart of the legally aided work that we do. Legal aid should be placed alongside the NHS and education. It is essential to ensure equality before the law…
“Funding does aid retention of barristers. Numbers of barristers who receive at least 80% of their income specifically from criminal legal aid, fell 11% from 2017/2018 to 2020/2021 but have since returned to 2017/2018 levels, following the legal aid investment in 2022.
“However, the number of KCs receiving at least 80% of their income from legal aid, or those who predominantly practise in crime, has fallen by a quarter. And the despair is back as we visibly no longer have enough barristers in our courts.”
On civil and family legal aid she said: “There is a declining number of barristers and solicitors undertaking civil legal aid work. It has been 30 years since there was any meaningful increase to civil legal aid rates. This is unsustainable.
“The Bar Council produced a report on the family law Bar in December 2025 setting out that attrition of its barristers from legally aided work is due to increased complexity alongside a severe reduction in legal aid.
“The overall result is that people do not have access to justice, including when they are seeking to flee violence in the home, struggling with collapsing housing or trying to hold the state to account on how their loved one died in a hospital or police station... I will invite the government to address the submissions of the Bar Council in the Review of Legal Aid in February 2024, as well as the specific report on the family Bar.”
On children in the justice system, Kirsty has set up a working group to consider the need to increase the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales from 10. She said:
“It is the lowest in Europe… We are rightly concerned about crime, victims and public safety. But the question is not ‘how do we punish?’ but ‘how do we prevent a lifetime in the criminal justice system?’ A proportion of children in custody are care experienced. Neurodiversity and learning disability are significantly over-represented. The measure of a justice system is how it treats the most vulnerable.”
Kirsty reiterated the Bar Council’s focus on reducing violence against women and girls and pointed to the lack of data on cases involving abuse and murder due to witchcraft beliefs. She said:
“There remains a lack of proper recording of these cases in the Crown Courts, so that appropriate protection can be determined through data analysis. There also is no consideration in sentencing of the belief that drives the harm. I will look at whether the Sentencing Council should consider its inclusion as an aggravating factor in sentences. This would serve to mark the serious physical and emotional abuse inflicted on the person by a witchcraft belief and also lead to better caselaw on the extent of the issue.”
Kirsty Brimelow KC also set out ongoing priority work on the value of commercial and international arbitration work; the protection of lawyers and judges; the earnings gap at the self-employed Bar; implementing Baroness Harman’s recommendations to tackle bullying and harassment; and promoting social mobility and disability at the Bar.
On commercial and arbitration work, she said: “It is significant and our barristers are an essential and brilliant part of the UK’s legal services, which are one of the most significant contributors to the economy, generating £42 billion pounds annually. The UK legal services market is the largest in Europe and second only to the U.S.in value globally. It’s expected to grow at 5.1% annually until 2029. I am delighted to be part of the government’s newly established English Law Promotion Panel and will work to promote the work of our barristers both domestically and internationally.”
On nature and the environment and conflict resolution, she said: “We all have an interest in protecting the planet for future generations and I will help the Bar Council play its part. The international crime of ecocide also will be in focus. Every day, we watch the news and see military strikes inflicting widespread and long-term damage on the environment. It would be an important by-product of the international crime of ecocide if it depoliticised referrals of warring states for investigation by the ICC and so increased effective prosecutions.
“Another area I am keen to promote is the expansion of barristers working in conflict resolution and rebuilding rule of law and justice systems in countries emerging from conflict.”
On protection of lawyers, Kirsty will “press the Government for the UK’s ratification of the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of the Profession of Lawyer. Only two days ago, a barrister wrote to the Midland Circuit Leader about his chambers receiving anonymous calls, one accompanied by verbal abuse, after he had represented an Afghan refugee convicted of rape. Conflating barristers with their clients stabs at the heart of the rule of law and the Bar Council is firm in its support of our barristers.”
On earnings at the self-employed Bar, Kirsty said: “In 2026, we will work with solicitors to encourage fair briefing practices. I already have had one meeting with the President of the Law Society, Mark Evans, and the Bar Council and Law Society will collaborate.
“I will lead the initiation of a campaign to improve billing practices. Junior barristers and women often don’t bill to reflect the work that they have done, feeling pressured or lacking confidence to bill the full hours that they have worked.”
On bullying and harassment, Kirsty revealed that the new Commissioner for Conduct would be announced shortly. She added: “All barristers are entitled to work in a safe environment and there is no place for bullying and harassment in this profession.
“This is a wonderful profession, and I am determined our junior colleagues and aspiring barristers are not deterred from the pathway to and in the Bar by the unacceptable behaviour of a minority at the Bar and on the Bench.”
Social mobility and disability are areas of personal interest to Kirsty. On social mobility she said: “Research suggests that a barrister’s socio-economic background continues to have a notable and persistent negative impact on their income. Cultural matching, fit and polish – too often mistaken for merit - should not be determinative at the point of entry to the profession, nor to progress within the profession. Sadly, too often they are…
“On leaving school, children with poor verbal communication skills are less likely to find employment and more likely to suffer from mental health difficulties The Government’s focus on oracy is a real opportunity for the Bar to make a difference.
“Advocacy is our profession’s key skill. Over the next 12 months I will promote the Speak for Success resources we have created for schoolchildren to help them develop core skills in listening, storytelling, persuading and arguing respectfully - skills that we need to navigate life. In fact, I will go back to school and, hopefully, inspire a few potential barristers along the way.”
The full speech also explores Kirsty’s career, including her experiences in Colombia negotiating an historic apology from the President for a massacre of cacao farmers, barristers working in conflict resolution, AI and tech, the single justice procedure, regulation, and wellbeing.
Kirsty Brimelow KC will lead the first all-female leadership team at the Bar Council with Heidi Stonecliffe KC as Vice Chair, Lucinda Orr as Treasurer and Amelia Clegg as Chair of the Young Barristers’ Committee. Read more about our officers.