*/
With a three-years-plus war on the eastern edge of Europe and a trade war emanating from the west, our public institutions being subject to frequent cyber-attacks and individuals suffering online abuse, cryptocurrencies creating a financial wild west and huge resistance in certain quarters to attempts to regulate artificial intelligence (AI), we are lawyering in a phase of upheaval. Nonetheless, one of the hopeful things emerging from this period of crisis is the way that lawyers, and indeed judges, are reaching out and collaborating with colleagues in other jurisdictions to weave a ‘comprehensive web of accountability’ for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, as former Attorney General of England and Wales, Baroness Prentis of Banbury KC discussed in the Magna Carta Lecture at Royal Holloway, University of London on 9 June 2025.*
The European Circuit of the Bar is an important strand in that web, providing lawyers with the weft of learning and the warp of professional connections; such learning and friendship being woven into practitioners’ domestic as well as international work.
This year I have the huge privilege of being the Leader of the European Circuit which is, essentially, the role of being team leader for a group of very committed and busy practitioners who serve on the executive committee of the European Circuit in their ‘spare’ time.
The European Circuit was set up in 2001 to support those at the Bar of England and Wales whose legal practice involved working geographically in Europe or with cases involving a European dimension. It has since grown to welcome members from a wide range of European jurisdictions.
Increasingly, members of the European Circuit are individuals whose practice involves a cross-border element, whether personal injury accidents abroad, cross-border family break-ups, immigration, deportation cases, extradition and a myriad of cross-border illegal activity that makes its way into criminal cases; this is in addition to more ‘traditional’ areas of international competition law and commercial cases, through to cases before and invoking the jurisprudence of the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Students and recently qualified lawyers are also warmly encouraged to join and we offer a concessionary membership rate for students and lawyers in their first five years of practice.
The current diverse executive committee reflects our membership and includes colleagues at the Bar in Dublin, in the legal department of the European Parliament and Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), young practitioners based in France and Sweden, an English-Canadian barrister as well as colleagues based in England and Wales.
The European Circuit holds regular seminars and round tables – mostly in English – in different jurisdictions, dealing with matters of relevance to its members. Recent events include our collaboration with Ukrainian colleagues in the European Circuit/King’s College London panel event ‘Ukraine, Sanctions and Security in Europe for 2025’. The discussion, held on 19 March, was chaired by Professor Paul James Cardwell with Lord Brennan KC and featured two leading Ukrainian lawyers involved in sanctions cases, Olena Sukmanova (previously the Deputy and First Deputy Minister of Justice in the Ukraine) and Maria Kostytska, as well as EU law academic, Professor Takis Tridimas.
Looking at the legal impact of Brexit five years on, the European Circuit hosted ‘The New Era of UK-EU Litigation in Civil, Family, & Criminal Matters’ on 10 June at Middle Temple. Organised by Gordon Nardell KC in collaboration with Alphalex Avocats of Brussels, the keynote address was delivered by Christopher Vajda, former UK Judge at the CJEU.
The Circuit has always enjoyed the support of senior members of the judiciary. For example, on 6 February Lord Justice Edis PC chaired a panel discussion at Middle Temple entitled ‘Dark Money: going after the proceeds and those involved in the “London laundromat” and further afield’. Speakers, who included event organiser Dr Mike Wilkinson as well as Jamas Hodivala KC, addressed the Corporate Sustainability and Due Diligence Directive (EU) 2024/1760 and the fact that profits made in breach of environmental and social laws in the UK and abroad are being increasingly treated as the proceeds of crime liable to forfeiture.
On 29 May at the Distillery Building, the headquarters of the Bar of Ireland, the President of the High Court of Ireland, David Barniville, gave the welcoming address and Deputy Leader of the Circuit, Paul McGarry SC, gave a masterclass in sports law along with three leading sports lawyers based in Ireland and Brussels.
The highlight of the year for the European Circuit is our annual conference. In recent years we have collaborated with colleagues in Brussels, Stockholm, Rome, Madrid, Lisbon, Prague and Bordeaux as well as putting on a successful online conference during the pandemic in 2020.
The conference always involves adventures. Last year, we spent an evening at La Cité du Vin in Bordeaux discussing the finer points of some of France’s finest produce. In Madrid, our gala dinner was held at the grand Palacio de Cibeles. In Rome, the Circuit organised the gala dinner on a terrace overlooking the stunningly lit Vatican. In Prague, our court visit included a tour of the cells where protestors in the Velvet Revolution are said to have been detained.
We are now putting the final touches to the schedule for the annual conference to be held in The Hague in September 2025 where we will be hosted by international law centre, the Asser Instituut.
The conference, themed ‘Lawyering in a Phase of Upheaval’, will be grounded in the everyday challenges facing lawyers as we all grapple with the same problems, albeit from slightly different angles. The event will also feed our need to relax with friends and enjoy the benefits of hard-won law-supporting political freedoms; the clean elegant streets and seafront of The Hague, high-quality food and beverages and an opportunity to discuss hard topics with sensitivity and respect, particularly as we learn more of the tenacious work of the International Criminal Court.
The 2025 conference will start with a drinks reception on the evening of Thursday 18 September at the Residence of the Czech Ambassador to The Netherlands in The Hague. The main part of the conference begins on Friday 19 September after a visit to the International Criminal Court (ICC) where British ICC Judge Joanna Korner CMG KC has kindly agreed to provide a welcome address.
Judge Kimberly Prost (ICC Judge and Canadian jurist) will give the keynote address followed by a Bar Leaders panel including Kirsty Brimelow KC (Vice-Chair of the Bar of England and Wales), Robert Němec (President of The Czech Bar), Seán Guerin SC (Chair of The Bar of Ireland), Sanne Van Oers (President of The Netherlands Bar), Stéphanie Encinas (Member of the Board, Paris Bar) and Barbara Howard (President Elect American Bar Association).
Panel sessions will cover migration, international criminal law, family law, AI/technology and trade and climate litigation. Please visit www.europeancircuit.com for further details.
Following the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016, many citizens and some lawyers thought that the UK’s relationship with European Member States and the influence of legal developments would be severely limited. However, in the experience of the European Circuit, this is far from the case. Not only has the UK continued to be active in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, but the nature of increased communication, movement of finance around the world at the click of a mouse, and increasing mobility of people, mean that cross-border issues increasingly become part of the case load of lawyers, including in the UK.
Abigail Holt practises from Garden Court Chambers in personal injury, industrial disease litigation and clinical negligence. She is co-convener of Chambers’ Commercial and Business Ethics team and a member of the Climate Justice team. Abigail is Leader of the European Circuit.
With a three-years-plus war on the eastern edge of Europe and a trade war emanating from the west, our public institutions being subject to frequent cyber-attacks and individuals suffering online abuse, cryptocurrencies creating a financial wild west and huge resistance in certain quarters to attempts to regulate artificial intelligence (AI), we are lawyering in a phase of upheaval. Nonetheless, one of the hopeful things emerging from this period of crisis is the way that lawyers, and indeed judges, are reaching out and collaborating with colleagues in other jurisdictions to weave a ‘comprehensive web of accountability’ for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, as former Attorney General of England and Wales, Baroness Prentis of Banbury KC discussed in the Magna Carta Lecture at Royal Holloway, University of London on 9 June 2025.*
The European Circuit of the Bar is an important strand in that web, providing lawyers with the weft of learning and the warp of professional connections; such learning and friendship being woven into practitioners’ domestic as well as international work.
This year I have the huge privilege of being the Leader of the European Circuit which is, essentially, the role of being team leader for a group of very committed and busy practitioners who serve on the executive committee of the European Circuit in their ‘spare’ time.
The European Circuit was set up in 2001 to support those at the Bar of England and Wales whose legal practice involved working geographically in Europe or with cases involving a European dimension. It has since grown to welcome members from a wide range of European jurisdictions.
Increasingly, members of the European Circuit are individuals whose practice involves a cross-border element, whether personal injury accidents abroad, cross-border family break-ups, immigration, deportation cases, extradition and a myriad of cross-border illegal activity that makes its way into criminal cases; this is in addition to more ‘traditional’ areas of international competition law and commercial cases, through to cases before and invoking the jurisprudence of the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Students and recently qualified lawyers are also warmly encouraged to join and we offer a concessionary membership rate for students and lawyers in their first five years of practice.
The current diverse executive committee reflects our membership and includes colleagues at the Bar in Dublin, in the legal department of the European Parliament and Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), young practitioners based in France and Sweden, an English-Canadian barrister as well as colleagues based in England and Wales.
The European Circuit holds regular seminars and round tables – mostly in English – in different jurisdictions, dealing with matters of relevance to its members. Recent events include our collaboration with Ukrainian colleagues in the European Circuit/King’s College London panel event ‘Ukraine, Sanctions and Security in Europe for 2025’. The discussion, held on 19 March, was chaired by Professor Paul James Cardwell with Lord Brennan KC and featured two leading Ukrainian lawyers involved in sanctions cases, Olena Sukmanova (previously the Deputy and First Deputy Minister of Justice in the Ukraine) and Maria Kostytska, as well as EU law academic, Professor Takis Tridimas.
Looking at the legal impact of Brexit five years on, the European Circuit hosted ‘The New Era of UK-EU Litigation in Civil, Family, & Criminal Matters’ on 10 June at Middle Temple. Organised by Gordon Nardell KC in collaboration with Alphalex Avocats of Brussels, the keynote address was delivered by Christopher Vajda, former UK Judge at the CJEU.
The Circuit has always enjoyed the support of senior members of the judiciary. For example, on 6 February Lord Justice Edis PC chaired a panel discussion at Middle Temple entitled ‘Dark Money: going after the proceeds and those involved in the “London laundromat” and further afield’. Speakers, who included event organiser Dr Mike Wilkinson as well as Jamas Hodivala KC, addressed the Corporate Sustainability and Due Diligence Directive (EU) 2024/1760 and the fact that profits made in breach of environmental and social laws in the UK and abroad are being increasingly treated as the proceeds of crime liable to forfeiture.
On 29 May at the Distillery Building, the headquarters of the Bar of Ireland, the President of the High Court of Ireland, David Barniville, gave the welcoming address and Deputy Leader of the Circuit, Paul McGarry SC, gave a masterclass in sports law along with three leading sports lawyers based in Ireland and Brussels.
The highlight of the year for the European Circuit is our annual conference. In recent years we have collaborated with colleagues in Brussels, Stockholm, Rome, Madrid, Lisbon, Prague and Bordeaux as well as putting on a successful online conference during the pandemic in 2020.
The conference always involves adventures. Last year, we spent an evening at La Cité du Vin in Bordeaux discussing the finer points of some of France’s finest produce. In Madrid, our gala dinner was held at the grand Palacio de Cibeles. In Rome, the Circuit organised the gala dinner on a terrace overlooking the stunningly lit Vatican. In Prague, our court visit included a tour of the cells where protestors in the Velvet Revolution are said to have been detained.
We are now putting the final touches to the schedule for the annual conference to be held in The Hague in September 2025 where we will be hosted by international law centre, the Asser Instituut.
The conference, themed ‘Lawyering in a Phase of Upheaval’, will be grounded in the everyday challenges facing lawyers as we all grapple with the same problems, albeit from slightly different angles. The event will also feed our need to relax with friends and enjoy the benefits of hard-won law-supporting political freedoms; the clean elegant streets and seafront of The Hague, high-quality food and beverages and an opportunity to discuss hard topics with sensitivity and respect, particularly as we learn more of the tenacious work of the International Criminal Court.
The 2025 conference will start with a drinks reception on the evening of Thursday 18 September at the Residence of the Czech Ambassador to The Netherlands in The Hague. The main part of the conference begins on Friday 19 September after a visit to the International Criminal Court (ICC) where British ICC Judge Joanna Korner CMG KC has kindly agreed to provide a welcome address.
Judge Kimberly Prost (ICC Judge and Canadian jurist) will give the keynote address followed by a Bar Leaders panel including Kirsty Brimelow KC (Vice-Chair of the Bar of England and Wales), Robert Němec (President of The Czech Bar), Seán Guerin SC (Chair of The Bar of Ireland), Sanne Van Oers (President of The Netherlands Bar), Stéphanie Encinas (Member of the Board, Paris Bar) and Barbara Howard (President Elect American Bar Association).
Panel sessions will cover migration, international criminal law, family law, AI/technology and trade and climate litigation. Please visit www.europeancircuit.com for further details.
Following the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016, many citizens and some lawyers thought that the UK’s relationship with European Member States and the influence of legal developments would be severely limited. However, in the experience of the European Circuit, this is far from the case. Not only has the UK continued to be active in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, but the nature of increased communication, movement of finance around the world at the click of a mouse, and increasing mobility of people, mean that cross-border issues increasingly become part of the case load of lawyers, including in the UK.
Chair of the Bar sets out a busy calendar for the rest of the year
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