What is the public image of a barrister? Wigs, courts and fat fees? Rumpole of the Bailey or Kavanagh, QC? People tend not to think public service, human rights, access to justice – far less, the export of legal services. But this is equally the reality of the Bar today. And it’s a message that the profession’s leaders want to drive home when 500 of the rank and file meet this Saturday for their annual conference in London.

The ethos of the Bar, argues Geoffrey Vos, QC, its chairman, is public service: half the profession is doing legal aid work – representing people accused of crimes, families, children and immigrants and challenging official decisions. As for the rest, the Commercial and Chancery Bars are driving the £2 billion export business in legal services.

But if the ethos is public service, then the common thread through all barristers’ work is human rights. This will be the theme of the conference, with every session – commercial or family law, criminal or international – geared to the impact of human rights.

Catherine Addy, a young Chancery practitioner chosen to chair the board organising this year’s event, said: “We wanted something of universal appeal to all members of the profession, in whatever field of work and whether in private practice or employed, such as with the Crown Prosecution Service. This seemed to be the one area of law that does transcend all specialisms as well as being topical and making the headlines.”

Quality, quality, quality

The British have never been willing to compromise on justice, writes Bar Council chairman Geoffrey Vos, QC

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Both domestically – with cases such as that of Learco Chindamo, the killer of the head-master Philip Lawrence and the issue of whether he could be deported – and internationally, with human rights in places such as Burma and Zimbabwe under attack, human rights were under scrutiny, she said.

Last week, too, in the face of Conservative pledges to bring forward a Bill of Rights, Gordon Brown promised a Green Paper on that same topic that will discuss if there is a need for such a Bill to build on the Human Rights Act and spell out that rights also carry responsibilities and whether Britain should go down the road of a written, codified constitution.

Sir Sydney Kentridge, QC, will give his own views in the keynote speech; and there will be a video address from Archbishop Desmond Tutu as well as an open forum debate on whether the Human Rights Act should be scrapped, with speakers including Dominic Grieve, MP, Melanie Phillips, the columnist, and Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty.

The sessions are outward-looking: barristers may be struggling with new fees regimes but this Saturday, at least, they will focus more on pro bono work, the fairness of financial awards on divorce and terrorism laws.

Meanwhile, access to the profession remains a hot topic. As Vos puts it, the Bar must seek to maintain itself as a world-class advocacy and advisory service and remain open to talent from all backgrounds. Addy, who went to a comprehensive school (Marple Hall School, Stockport) and a state sixth-form college before Cambridge, says tuition fees have made it harder now for entrants than before she was called to the Bar eight years ago. “I was lucky in that I read law so I had access to lawyers who could advise me on where to go from there... but I worked hard, I didn’t get there easily, but I never felt hindered by sex or educational background.”

It is important, though, she says, to take positive steps to encourage others into the profession. That has been a theme of Vos’s year and soon Lord Neuberger, the law lord, will report on ways to “level the playing field for those from disadvantaged backgrounds”. The aim, Vos repeats, is service: the Bar should be “truly representative of those it serves”.

But if those fat-cat jibes are to be laid to rest for ever, it must also be efficient and cost-effective – while not harming the achievement of justice. That, he says, remains the real challenge.

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