It has been reported recently that, with effect from January 2014, barristers in the UK will be able to conduct litigation and share business premises with non-barristers. They will be able to take briefs from the client directly, without having to go through a solicitor first and the Bar Standards Board said, by their chairlady, that, “Superfluous rules have been stripped away and others modernised.” No doubt this will have some implications for legal practice in South Africa and one might see the referral rule dropping away for advocates in South Africa without an attorney being required. Whether most of the advocates would be prepared to practice like this is however quite debatable and it is unlikely that they would be interested in the nitty-gritty and often tiresome aspects of the day to day handling of somebody’s matter.