From championing access to justice to ruffling the regulators' feathers, Michael Todd has had an eventful year as chairman of the Bar Council. As he returns to lead Erskine Chambers, Ben Rigby finds him glad to be back in practise

"This last year, I have come to realise, even more clearly than before, that you cannot please all people all of the time and you cannot please some people any of the time." 

So wrote Erskine Chambers' Michael Todd QC at the conclusion of his year as chairman of the Bar Council. If there was a touch of asperity in the tone of writing, Todd could be forgiven. 

The commercial and chancery Bar is facing new pressures as it becomes increasingly international, and as collaborations with solicitors through alternative business structures and similar shake up the dynamic. 

Meanwhile, the criminal Bar continues to suffer from consistently low legal aid rates and the imposition of a deeply unpopular Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocacy. The impact of changes in 2012 to the civil and family Bar from legal aid cuts and civil justice costs will also be considerable.

Add to this mix the Legal Services Board (LSB) and a newish non-lawyer Lord Chancellor whose appreciation of the Bar's value seems questionable at times, and one sees why Todd's comment rings true.

Taking the helm again

It is easy to see why most Bar Council chairmen return to practise with a degree of relief. In common with Todd, who has come back to his old set at Erskine, none of the past few chairmen – Peter Lodder QC, Nicholas Green QC, Desmond Browne QC and Timothy Dutton QC – moved directly to the High Court bench, as was once the case.

The last to do so, Mr Justice Vos, returned to practise at 3 Stone Buildings for two years after his term in 2007 before becoming a justice in the chancery division of the High Court. 

Todd returns as head of his set, a role he first took up in April 2011, replacing veteran company lawyer John Cone. So what does he see as the principal differences between chair of the Bar and head of chambers?

He pauses a moment before responding: "The roles are different. You're promoting people's work in both. At the Bar, you're chairman of the whole Bar and that is a very broad church. It's a wide spectrum of work. It's important you have the support of all those sections of the Bar to do this."

He credits support from circuit leaders and the specialist Bar Associations, for example, and from his deputy, current Bar Council chairman Maura McGowan QC. By contrast, he says, "chambers is less of a broad church". 

The roles do have common ground: "How do we maintain our position? How do we improve it? How well do we do the work we do? How can clients and solicitors use us more effectively?" 

But, for him, the role of head of chambers is "a much narrower focus, but just as responsible. You still need support – without it, it's a lonely furrow. [The role can be] burdensome in time and ineffectual in nature, but this set are supportive and close-knit. We know each other very well."

At home and awayrmp-michael-todd-04-web

During his tenure at the Bar Council, Todd has been a steady voice for campaigns such as the City's 'unlocking disputes', promoting the Bar abroad, particularly in the US. 

With disputes becoming increasingly global, many critics have argued that the Bar has been slow to sell its strengths abroad. But Todd points to its increasingly active role in the International Bar Association and its work in partnership with other referral Bars across the globe as evidence that the Bar is growing as an export. 

The Bar's strength comes from "common principles that bind our work, including the rule of law, the effective access to and administration of justice, and the need for it to be a properly funded and resourced system, all of which matter", he says. 

He argues there is also common ground to be found with Bars in multiple jurisdictions, not least in "sharing our experience and also our concerns, as well as personnel in the Commonwealth Lawyers' Association". 

Todd refutes claims his support for unlocking disputes is a case of promoting justice for oligarchs abroad rather than for the public at home – a criticism levied by some. 

Access to justice was a central part of his message during his time as chairman, with Todd fighting the cause for justice "as required by the rule of law", in support of "vulnerable people to whom the publicly funded Bar provides representation on a daily basis".

In his speech at the annual Bar conference, he reiterated that point: "We must not and will not neglect or abandon those who depend on us the most. Where would they all be if others, on the periphery of the provision of legal services, get their way?"

Speaking out

Over his tenure, Todd won support from the Bar for speaking out strongly in its favour on some key causes – although he also ruffled feathers among regulators, including the LSB.

Urging the Bar to stop "reacting to the ideas of those on the periphery of the provision of legal services", he was forced to clarify statements calling for the abolition of the LSB, having had a dig at their demands for key performance indicators, for example.

Writing to members, he said: "In answer to a direct question, I did say that I thought it should be abolished [and why]. It is something to desire an outcome; it is another actively to pursue it," noting that to do so would be "pointless".

But in other areas, he has worked to draw oversight bodies closer together. Given the perpetual jostling between Chancery Lane and the Bar Council, Todd stresses that, while they may disagree, the Bar has worked closely with the Law Society and the City of London Law Society. 

He says: "I personally found [former Law Society president and current Allen & Overy consultant] John Wotton a delight to work with and, on most issues, we had common cause with the Law Society. On others, we recognised we had differing views. But contrary to the media perception, we actually agree on most things."

Company guys

Having focused on his role as chairman last year, Todd – a veteran of takeover battles, shareholder disputes and joint venture breakdowns – is ready to return to the fray.

At Erskine, he has handled cases such as Kleanthous v Paphitis [2011], a heavily publicised claim involving former Dragon's Den star Theo Paphitis (pictured), which required extensive consideration of derivative claims, directors' powers and duties, issues of fraud, limitation periods, loans and the role of minority shareholders.

Yet perhaps the set's most famous public outing was the work of his colleague Richard Snowden QC and James Potts QC – who made silk in this year's appointments – who were both recently involved in the long-running corporate battle between Liverpool FC's board and former owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett over the £300m sale of the club, a deal both men argued undervalued it.

Does that indicate a shift away from the set's advisory heritage? Todd says it depends at which level advice is sought: "The balance [of work] has become more contentious. While leading firms come to us on a regular basis for assistance on contentious cases, their advisory capabilities have increased significantly, not least because their knowledge management and our expertise is better captured and retrieved these days."

In an age when the Bar is increasingly merging, Todd believes it helps that his set is comparatively small in size, with 27 members, allowing for collegiality in approach. 

"Those [expansive] models of practice do not suit us. I have the greatest respect for those in 'mega sets'. But mergers come with their own stresses and strains, and we prefer to grow organically, focusing on our core practice areas."

To him, Erskine Chambers – long seen as the leading set in corporate law advice – is "less of a leviathan than a specialist set with a great brand in company law and supporting areas".

"That means the work we do around that core focus has to support it, and our size must be seen as proportionate to that aim.Second, chambers has to be mutually supportive and the larger you are, the less that may happen," which, he argues, favours proportionate growth, to a maximum of about 30 members.

That, he says, "meets that objective of mutual support. Put simply: everyone must know who everyone else is and what they do, and do so well."

The set has seen two new arrivals – Raquel Agnello QC and Peter Arden QC – both with insolvency backgrounds as silks, joining the set in a rare lateral move in January from 11 Stone Buildings and Enterprise Chambers respectively.

A pleasing outcome

And what about pleasing people some of the time? Among the things Todd says he is proudest of achieving is having brought the Bar closer together and making the Bar Council more transparent. 

"I am also pleased that, finally, the Bar nursery is going to happen. I am also happy we've kept up an emphasis on social mobility and on pro bono, both of which are vital to the Bar of the future."

But, perhaps more tangibly, he is right to have some pride for his role in taking a new escrow account scheme, BARCO, to market. The third-party account, held with Barclays Bank, will effectively allow barristers to handle client money for the first time, marking a major step forward for the modern Bar. 

Alongside initiatives to encourage clients to directly approach the Bar for advice, rather than go through law firms, BARCO marks another significant step towards severing the Bar's total dependence on solicitors. It is easy to see why BARCO is dear to his heart – the idea of escrow services is a familiar one in the banking and corporate world he works in, and its extension to allow barristers to receive funds from clients is, he says, an "imaginative and unique solution for clients all over the world, making it easier than ever before to work with the Bar".

To this end, however, he still has some regrets that he was not able to contribute any further to building the profile and commerciality of the Bar Council – "[making it] appear more relevant, by making it do more, especially in delivering commercially minded services for the Bar to benefit from".

But for now, Todd is happy to have respite from attempting to please all: "I am very much back into the work. I have both Privy Council and Supreme Court work lined up, and visits to Hong Kong planned. I'm ready to get back in harness."