Managed Print for Barristers Chambers

A set of chambers is not a law firm with a different name. It is a group of self employed barristers sharing premises, clerks and services while each practising on their own account. That structure changes almost every print question, from who pays for a page to who is responsible if a set of instructions goes astray.

This guide looks at managed print through the eyes of senior clerks, chambers directors and the members who sit on the management committee. It covers confidentiality duties under the BSB Handbook, how to share print costs fairly between members, how hot desking and remote working affect secure printing and how chambers can handle the steady flow of bundles and papers that arrive from instructing solicitors.

How chambers print differs from a law firm

In a firm the partnership or company owns the devices and absorbs the cost. In chambers the shared services are usually funded by members through rent or contributions, often set as a percentage of fees, a flat amount or a mix. Every shared expense therefore has to be seen as fair by people at very different stages of practice, from a junior tenant in their first years to a silk with a heavy paper practice.

The work pattern is different too. Barristers move between chambers, court, home and sometimes other sets. Many have no fixed desk. Papers arrive from dozens of instructing firms, each with its own expectations about how documents will be handled. The clerks’ room runs diaries, fee notes and correspondence for every member. A print setup has to serve all of those users without mixing their work or their costs.

Confidentiality duties under the BSB Handbook

The Bar Standards Board Handbook sets ten Core Duties. Core Duty 6 requires a barrister to keep the affairs of each client confidential. Rule rC15.5 in the Conduct Rules expands on this by requiring barristers to protect the confidentiality of each client’s affairs, subject to limited exceptions. The Bar Council’s information security guidance also refers to rC89.5, which requires reasonable steps to ensure that proper arrangements are made in chambers for ensuring the confidentiality of clients’ affairs.

The same guidance treats barristers as data controllers for the personal data in their practice and encourages chambers to have an information risk policy covering how confidential material is safeguarded. It advises that confidential papers should not be left where they might be read inadvertently and that chambers should have procedures for secure disposal, including cross cut shredding for paper and proper overwriting for electronic media.

This is a summary for general information, not regulatory advice. Always refer to the current BSB Handbook and Bar Council guidance.

Secure release for a hot desking set

Where members share rooms or hot desk, a printer next to a desk no longer belongs to one person. A document sent to it may be collected by whoever reaches it first. Secure release solves this by holding every job in a single queue until the member authenticates at any device with a building access card or a PIN. Papers are never left in a tray between hearings and a member returning from court can release their job on whichever floor they happen to be.

• One queue for everyone. Members print to the same queue from any room and release at any device.
• Card reuse. Existing door access cards can often double as print cards, so there is nothing new to carry.
• Automatic deletion. Jobs not collected within a set time are deleted rather than printed.
• Clerks’ room permissions. Clerks can be given their own release rights without access to members’ personal queues.

Charging each member fairly

Shared costs cause more friction in chambers than almost anything else. A member who prints every bundle to annotate by hand uses far more paper and toner than one who works entirely on a tablet. Spreading the whole print bill evenly across rent can feel unfair to the second member and does nothing to encourage restraint.

Print management software such as PaperCut makes metered models practical. Each member has a personal account and every page printed, copied or scanned is recorded against it. The clerks or chambers director can export monthly totals for adding to members’ statements. Where members want to track print against a particular case for their own records, shared accounts by client can be added as an option.

Bundles, annotations and the paperless question

Courts now expect electronic bundles in many hearings and many barristers work from tablets with annotation software. Even so, plenty of counsel still print key sections to mark up, particularly for long trials and cross examination preparation. Chambers print policy should support both habits rather than trying to force one.

• Print selectively. Encourage members to print the sections they will annotate rather than the whole bundle.
• Duplex and mono by default. Keeps the cost of reading copies down while colour remains available for exhibits and plans.
• Finishing where it earns its place. Hole punching for lever arch files is often more useful in chambers than booklet making.
• Confidential waste close to devices. Annotated pages and spare copies need a locked console rather than a recycling bin.

Remote working and printing away from chambers

Members regularly work from home and from court. Home printers are a common weak point: papers can be left on a shared family printer, disposed of in household recycling or kept long after a case ends. Chambers cannot control every home office. It can make chambers printing easy enough from anywhere that members use it by choice.

Cloud based print management allows a member to send a job from home or court and release it securely the next time they are in chambers. It removes the need for VPN connections to a print server and keeps the same release controls wherever the job starts. Chambers policy can then set expectations for any printing that does happen at home, such as secure storage and shredding.

Getting the fleet right for a set

Most sets are well served by a small number of capable multifunction devices placed on each floor near where members work, plus one in the clerks’ room. Desktop printers in individual rooms are expensive per page, hard to secure and usually the first thing to rationalise. Scanning deserves attention too, because clerks and members increasingly scan returned papers and signed documents rather than filing paper. Scan to the member’s own email or storage, never to an open shared folder.

Contracts should be taken out by the chambers entity or service company that holds other shared contracts, with a clear process for approving changes through the management committee. Ask any provider to explain how accounts, reports and member charging will work before signing.

If your set is reviewing its shared print arrangements, our Managed Print Services for Legal Firms page explains how CopyBox Document Systems designs secure, fairly charged print services for legal practices and professional sets.

Guides on bundles, secure release and cost recovery for barristers, clerks and solicitors are collected in the Legal Firm MPS Guidance library.

Chambers print works best when every member trusts that their clients’ papers are safe and their share of the bill is fair. To see how that could work for your set, visit our Managed Print Services for Legal Firms page or call our Bedford team.