A new brand to promote barristers’ services directly to the public is due to launch this summer, the Gazette has learned.

Ian Dodd, director of virtual chambers BarFutures, plans to launch the National Advocacy Network, aimed at promoting public access to the bar.

The move will take advantage of the changes approved earlier this month by the Bar Standards Board, which expanded the areas of work that barristers can be instructed on directly by lay clients without the need for a solicitor. These include pre-charge advice for criminal matters, and both advice and representation for family cases.

Dodd said: ‘The aim is to offer clients a branded quality controlled service… We hope to launch this summer. It will be a national brand for direct access, and will help barristers improve their brand to promote themselves, in a similar way that QualitySolicitors is doing for solicitors.’

Meanwhile, solicitor Martin Gregory has set up Lateral Law, which is to launch a new online national network for referrals between solicitors.

Gregory, a high street solicitor, said he wanted to reduce lawyers’ dependence on third parties and ‘give power back to the profession’.