PRESTWICH councillor Stuart Kaufman has become a high flying legal eagle as a solicitor advocate.

The St Mary's representative is now, in the words of the legal trade, qualified to exercise rights of audience in criminal proceedings.

Only barristers and solicitor advocates are entitled to represent people in the criminal courts - Crown Court, High Court, House of Lords and European Court - and Coun Kaufman will wear a black gown and winged collar, but no wig.

The former Bury Grammar School pupil studied law at Cambridge and has been a partner in Manchester-based Kaufman Copitch Solicitors for 15 years.

He was elected as a councillor in 1996 and is Bury Council's spokesman for LA21, the authority's blueprint for environmental improvements.

He also serves on the lifelong learning scrutiny and review panel and Prestwich Area Board. There are three routes to becoming a Solicitor Advocate: experience, exemption if you can illustrate exceptional experience, and examination.

"I have done it through sheer experience," said Coun Kaufman.

"I have had certain limited rights of audience in the criminal courts in the past but I have not yet exercised my new rights."

Despite describing his new title as sounding "rather sinister", he added: "Solicitors are really being encouraged by the Government to become solicitor advocates. They are trying to encourage a fusion of the profession.

"The Law Society president Robert Sayer has talked about controlled fusion within five years and uncontrolled in ten years. It is the way the profession is going.

"The matter has been resisted by the Bar Council who do not wish to see any change at all. Unfortunately for them, the Government has other ideas."

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