Congratulations to the new ChBA Recorders

2017 Recorder Competition – Congratulations

Congratulations to the following members of the Association who have been appointed as Recorders.

101 Recorders have been appointed to sit in Crime, and 32 Recorders have been appointed to sit in Family.  To read the full list click here.

In the 2017 Recorder Competition candidates were not required or expected to have any previous knowledge of criminal or family law (cf the 2011 and 2015 Competitions).  The outcome of the 2017 Recorder Competition is that 50 (49%) of the recorders appointed to sit in crime have civil practices, 57 have criminal practices (56%) and 4 (5%) are existing judges.  7 (22%) of the recorders appointed to sit in family have civil practices, 21 (66%) are family practitioners, and 4 (12%) are existing judges.

For civil practitioners this outcome is a vast improvement on the 2015 Recorder Competition, when only 11 (17%) of the recorders appointed to sit in crime had non-criminal practices, and only 2 (5%) of the recorders appointed to sit in family had non-family practices.

Further, the outcome of the 2017 Competition is in line with the 2009 Recorder Competition when 66 (51.6%) of the recorders appointed to sit in crime had non-criminal practices.  The qualifying tests in the 2009 Competition were based on a hypothetical jurisdiction, and did require any knowledge of criminal law.