On Monday nominations close for 10 places, half of the total, on the Bar Council. Some 1,300 members are accredited to vote before July 14th, but as is usual with the profession, little can be predicted. Chairman Liam McKechnie is expected by tradition to be elected for a second year, but first he must make it back onto the council. There have been upsets in the past.
McKechnie has been an efficient, if low-profile, chairman so, with the Bar's penchant for the dramatic, and because he only barely won through against Rory Brady last year, his re-election is not a certainty. Some members feel McKechnie should be out battling for the Bar on a regular basis, but it must be said that the past 12 months have been relatively quiet, considering the job his predecessor John McMenamin had with the Sheedy affair and complaints to the Council about barristers' treatment of witnesses at the Flood tribunal.
Until nominations close, however, there can be little speculation as to who might challenge. Whatever the future holds, one unsolvable problem for the legal eagles (and one about which they are very conscious) is the low esteem in which they are held by the public and the perception that they are all raking it in. Which of course they are, since an SC's fees range from £1,000 to £3,000 a day.