Next year’s North American Meeting (for COMBAR members only) will take place in the British Virgin Islands. COMBAR has received a very attractive proposal and encouragement from the BVI Government through its International Finance Centre to hold the meeting there in early April 2011, namely Thursday 14 th (welcome reception), Friday 15th and Saturday 16th April (i.e. before Easter and Passover which fall later in the month). The proposal includes very attractive rates to stay at the new Scrub Island Resort (http://scrubisland.com/ ) and organised connecting flights through Antigua (Miami and New York are alternative gateways to the BVI). Provisionally we are planning that the dinner would be held on the Friday night 15th and closing the conference with a lunch on Saturday in case people want to fly out Saturday night instead of Sunday night.

The BVI continues to be a significant developing centre for commercial litigation and a considerable financial centre and represents a place of significant opportunities for all our members. Our BVI Hon Members are keen to welcome us and to provide opportunities to interact with the local Bar.

Meanwhile, please put these dates in your diary. Full details will be circulated in due course and also posted on this site.

Joe Smouha QC
Chairman, North American Committee

COMBAR is launching a pilot scheme to support and assist its members who are about to take or return from parental leave or a career break.

The Scheme has been set up by the COMBAR Equality & Diversity Committee and is in effect an informal mentoring scheme. COMBAR members from a range of sets of chambers and of different levels of call, all of whom have successfully returned to independent practice following parental leave or a career break, have volunteered to be a point of contact for those about to take/return from parental leave or a career break and to provide advice and support. The scheme is intended to provide confidential practical advice both while practices are being wound down in the lead up to parental leave/career breaks and also prior to and upon members’ return to independent practice.

Those members of COMBAR who would like to participate in the scheme should in the first instance contact Veronica Kendall at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it    after 1 September 2010.

COMBAR is intending to pilot this scheme for a 12-month trial period.
 

COMBAR is a cooperating entity helping to promote the ABA Section of International Law meeting taking place in Paris from 2-6 November 2010.

Click here for the flyer and for further information about the Paris meeting and other ABA events click here

Click here to see the Summer 2010 Newsletter produced in association with Sweet & Maxwell.

Through the COMBAR Africa Committee, COMBAR has been proud to join a number of law firms in supporting this year's International Lawyers for Africa (ILFA) programme both financially and by offering the opportunity of mini-pupillages in COMBAR sets to ILFA candidates who are practising lawyers selected to spend three months training in the UK.

Candidates from Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia and Sierra Leone spent time at 3-4 South Square, 3 Verulam Buildings and Tanfield Chambers as part of their programme. For more information about ILFA see http://www.ilfa.org.uk/

For an article about the ILFA programme that recently appeared in The Lawyer, click here

The COMBAR Africa Committee is encouraging other commercial sets to become involved in the coming year.

Click here for COMBAR's response to the BSB's second consultation paper on the Review of the Code of Conduct.