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General Council of the Bar

Representative body for barristers in England and Wales

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
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Source updated September 10, 2026
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The General Council of the Bar, commonly known as the Bar Council, is the representative body for barristers in England and Wales. Established in 1894, the Bar Council is the "approved regulator" of barristers, but delegates its regulatory function to the independent Bar Standards Board. As the lead representative body for barristers in England and Wales, the Bar Council’s work is devoted to ensuring the Bar’s voice is heard, efficiently and effectively, and with the interests of the Bar (and the public interest) as its focus.

The Chair in 2025 is Barbara Mills.

01History

The General Council of the Bar was created in 1894 to deal with breaches of a barrister's professional standards, something that had previously been handled by the judiciary. Along with the Inns of Court it formed the Senate of the Inns of Court and the Bar in 1974, a union that was broken up on 1 January 1987 following a report by Lord Rawlinson. The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 designated the Bar Council as the professional body for barristers, with the role as a regulatory body being split off in 2006 to form the Bar Standards Board.

02Committees

As part of the representative remit of the Bar Council, it has a number of representative committees. The most senior of these is the Bar Council, which has 56 members representing organisations such as the Circuits and Specialist Bar Associations, and 60 members elected by the wider Bar.

There are a further fourteen committees, including:

  • Bar Representation Committee
  • Education and Training Committee
  • Employed Barristers Committee
  • Equality, Diversity, and Social Mobility Committee
  • Ethics Committee
  • European Committee
  • General Management Committee
  • International Committee
  • Law Reform Committee
  • Legal Services Committee
  • Pro Bono and Social Responsibility Committee
  • Remuneration Committee

03List of chairs

Watch videos about General Council of the BarExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “General Council of the Bar”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

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