About Clerk&Counsel

Modern clerking & barrister support services.

Clerk&Counsel is a UK clerking agency built for clients, solicitors, chambers and the independent Bar. We provide barrister support services, chambers support services and law firm support services — and a quieter, more capable way to find and instruct counsel.

Who we are

Clerk&Counsel was founded by people who believed instructing the Bar should feel as quiet and capable as instructing any other specialist. We sit between clients, solicitors, chambers and barristers — and we run on software, not biscuits and ledgers. We are not a barristers' chambers and we are not a firm of solicitors. We are a clerking agency: a modern back office for the independent Bar and an honest intake desk for the people who need to instruct it.

Every barrister we work with is independently regulated by the Bar Standards Board and personally responsible for the legal advice and advocacy provided. Clerk&Counsel operates strictly within the BSB Handbook framework for unregulated entities providing clerking and barrister support services.

Barrister support services

Our core offer to individual barristers and small sets is a full outsourced clerking and barrister support service. We bring the work and run the back office on a single, transparent percentage — no annual subscription, no rent, no hidden marketing levy. In practice, that means:

  • Virtual clerking & diary management — first point of contact for clients and solicitors, listings, hearings, conferences.
  • Fee negotiation & billing — fixed fees, brief fees, hourly rates, aged-debt chasing, fee-note production.
  • New-business generation — qualified instructions delivered to your inbox, sourced through our website, SEO and direct relationships with solicitors.
  • Marketing & profile — practice page, written content, schema-marked-up profile that ranks in Google.
  • Compliance & conflict checks — engagement letters, conflict screening, AML where applicable.
  • Chambers support services — for small sets that want clerking capacity without expanding the room.

See For Barristers for the full clerking proposition and fee model.

Law firm support services

For solicitors and in-house legal teams, Clerk&Counsel is a counsel-sourcing partner. One call, one email or one form — and we identify the right BSB-registered barrister for the matter, confirm availability, agree the fee and return a written quote. No ringing round chambers, no waiting for senior clerks to call back.

  • Counsel sourced by practice area, seniority and fee envelope.
  • Transparent fixed fees, agreed in writing before instruction.
  • Brief delivery, engagement paperwork and post-hearing housekeeping handled by us.
  • Coverage across commercial, construction (TCC), family and direct-access work.

More on the solicitor-facing service at For Solicitors.

How to find a barrister

People ask us this every week, so here is the honest version. To find a barrister in the UK, you need four things settled before you instruct:

  1. The practice area. Commercial, construction, family, employment, crime — the Bar is highly specialised, and the right counsel for a TCC adjudication is the wrong counsel for a children matter.
  2. The seniority. Junior, senior junior, or KC — driven by complexity, value and the opposing party's choice.
  3. The fee model. Fixed fee for discrete pieces (advice, drafting, single hearings) or brief fee plus refreshers for longer trials.
  4. The route. Direct (you instruct counsel yourself under Public Access) or via your solicitor.

Rather than browsing a barrister directory and cold-emailing chambers, you can brief us in two minutes — we'll come back with named counsel, written fees and a clear next step. That's the cleanest way to instruct a barrister if you've never done it before.

Direct access vs solicitor-instructed

If you don't already have a solicitor, the Direct Access (or Public Access) scheme lets you instruct a Public-Access-qualified barrister directly — for advice, drafting, conferences and most advocacy. It's typically faster and more cost-effective than the two-tier model. See our Direct Access Barristers hub and the city-specific pages for London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Kent.

If your matter is genuinely complex — heavy disclosure, ongoing case management, court bundles — we'll tell you, candidly, that a solicitor should be on the record first. The clerk's job is to route the work properly, not to take every instruction that comes in.

Regulation, structure & company

Clerk&Counsel is a trading style of Found First Digital Ltd, registered in England. Our office is at 4 Bark Street East, Bolton BL1 2BQ. We are an unregulated entity providing clerking and barrister support services. The barristers we clerk for are individually regulated by the Bar Standards Board and carry their own professional indemnity insurance.

About our Director
Stacey Horrocks, Director of Clerk&Counsel

Stacey Horrocks · Director

Stacey Horrocks

Stacey is the Director of Clerk&Counsel and the person who sets the standard for how we clerk. She graduated with an LLB Law degree in 2015 and has spent the past eleven years working in law — first in personal injury, where she learned how unforgiving litigation deadlines are, and then across a broad range of support roles in the legal sector.

Over those years she has clerked for commercial firms, run work-generation programmes for family law barristers, and built the operational systems that let small legal teams behave like much larger ones. That mix — the litigation grounding, the commercial back-office experience, and a long stretch generating new instructions for the Bar — is what Clerk&Counsel is built on.

She founded Clerk&Counsel to give independent barristers a modern alternative to traditional chambers: a clerking agency that brings the work, runs the back office and lets counsel keep their independence — and to give clients and solicitors a single, honest place to find a barrister without ringing round half of Lincoln's Inn.

Get in touch with Stacey →
FAQs

Frequently asked questions

What are barrister support services?
Barrister support services cover everything that surrounds a barrister's legal work but isn't the legal work itself — clerking, diary management, fee negotiation, billing, conflict checks, new-business generation, marketing and SEO. Clerk&Counsel provides these as an outsourced service so independent barristers and small sets can practise without running a back office.
How do I find a barrister in the UK?
The fastest route is to brief a clerk. Tell us the practice area, the urgency and the parties; we identify suitable, available, BSB-registered counsel and come back with options and indicative fees. You can also instruct directly via our Direct Access service if your matter qualifies, or have your solicitor instruct on your behalf.
What is a barristers' clerk and what do they do?
A barristers' clerk is the person who manages a barrister's practice — taking instructions from clients and solicitors, negotiating fees, managing the diary, handling billing and acting as the day-to-day point of contact. Historically clerks sat in a physical chambers; Clerk&Counsel runs a modern, software-led clerking agency that delivers the same function without the rent.
Can I instruct a barrister directly without a solicitor?
Yes — through the Public Access (also called Direct Access) scheme, members of the public and businesses can instruct a Public-Access-qualified barrister directly for advice, drafting and most types of advocacy. We'll tell you candidly whether your matter is suitable for direct instruction or whether a solicitor should be involved first.
How much does it cost to instruct counsel?
Most of our work is offered on a transparent fixed fee agreed in writing before instruction. Hourly rates and brief fees are available for longer-running litigation. We negotiate the fee on behalf of the barrister and confirm it in the engagement letter — no hidden uplifts, no clerks' commission added on top.
Do you provide support services to law firms and chambers?
Yes. We work with solicitors and in-house legal teams as a counsel-sourcing partner, and we provide outsourced clerking and chambers support services to individual barristers and small sets who don't want to carry a traditional clerks' room. See our For Solicitors and For Barristers pages for the full scope.
Is Clerk&Counsel a chambers or a law firm?
Neither. Clerk&Counsel is a clerking agency — an unregulated entity operating within the BSB Handbook framework. We don't provide legal services ourselves. Every barrister you instruct through us is an independent practitioner regulated by the Bar Standards Board.
Do you cover the whole of the UK?
Yes. We work with barristers across England, Wales and Scotland and have dedicated location pages for major centres including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Liverpool, Newcastle, Cardiff and Glasgow.

Need to instruct counsel,
or want us clerking your practice?

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