Robert Jay QC and the Miilibands

Robert Jay QC is joint head of 39 Essex Street, where the wife of the Leader of HM Loyal Opposition holds a tenancy.    A Head of Chambers has the duties set out in the Bar Code of Conduct (404).

Mr Jay therefore, broadly, has to make sure that his tenants:

(1) have a practising certificate
(2) are insured
(3) don't discriminate
(3) report solicitors who don't pay promptly so that credit is withdrawn from them

The rest of his obligations relate to pupils, staff and administration -not tenants- who are self-employed and independent.  That's why he can examine his fellow tenant's husband at a public inquiry without a problem  -

As he said yesterday in answer to some on the internet, who got the wrong end of the stick:


(A short break)
10 (3.23 pm)
11 MR JAY: Mr Miliband, I owe you an apology. I mentioned to
12 you beforehand that I would raise this at the start of
13 your evidence but I then omitted to. As many have
14 already correctly observed, your wife is a member of the
15 set of chambers where I am joint head. We have not,
16 however, previously met outside the circumstances of
17 this Inquiry.
18 A. Correct.
19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I ought to make it clear that I've
20 known that for some time.
21 MR JAY: Yes. There's a misunderstanding about it. We are,
22 of course, self-employed in independent practice. We
23 are not partners and people perhaps need to understand
24 that.
25 A. She and I were partners at one point, but we're now
Page 48
1 married, actually.

Sweet of Ed to say that he was once his wife's (life) partner, as opposed to Robert Jay QC who is not and was not a partner to Ed's wife in any sense.....