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In January 2024, after several years of extensive planning and renovations, Farrar’s Building became one of the first sets in the Temple with wheelchair access to all floors and facilities suitable for wheelchair users. This will rightly allow wheelchair users and those with mobility issues to access Chambers.
That is, however only one of the many hurdles wheelchair users at the Bar, experience on a daily basis, as part of their court-based practices. In addition therefore to the building renovations at Farrar’s, we embarked upon an award-winning project to collate extensive data surrounding court and transport accessibility. Our aim was to mitigate, as far as possible, the societal barriers that could impact a wheelchair user’s career at the Bar, including national transport limitations and accessibility issues across the entire court network in England and Wales.
In this podcast with Jonathan Wheeler of Bolt Burdon Kemp, Holly Girven of Farrar’s Building, speaks as a barrister and wheelchair user, of her own experiences of the accessibility of our courts. Holly also outlines the extensive data gathered by Chambers, which helps her clerking team to understand which courts wheelchair users at the Bar are able to accept work in and which present obstacles due to transport or accessibility issues. Such information enables Holly’s clerks to liaise with clients accordingly in the management of both hers and other members’ developing practices. It also provides invaluable information for us to join BBK in asking the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Access to Justice, what efforts are being made to improve court accessibility for wheelchair users?
We are grateful to BBK for their work on this important and often unrepresented issue and for inviting Holly to join them in their “Free Speech” Podcast. We look forward to working together further, to ensure that the future of court accessibility is brighter for all wheelchair users.