The Bar Council of England and Wales has appointed former military assistant to the UK prime minister and Royal Marine Jim Morris CB DSO as its next CEO, replacing Malcolm Cree CBE who is retiring after eight years at the helm of the organisation.
Morris will join in March next year from technology company VoCoVo, where he currently serves as chief of staff and strategic adviser. Earlier in his career he served as the first military assistant to the prime minister since World War II during David Cameron’s tenure at No.10, among other military roles.
As CEO of the Bar Council, Morris will lead the senior management team to deliver its overall strategy and oversee day-to-day operations. The chair of the Bar Council, Barbara Mills KC, welcomed Morris’s appointment, saying: “His depth of experience and strong leadership record make him uniquely positioned to guide us into our next chapter.”
Mills, who stands down as chair at the end of December, handing over to current vice chair Kirsty Brimelow KC of Doughty Street, added: “The Bar Council and our members look forward to working closely with Jim to deliver on our mission and strengthen our impact.”
In response, Morris said: “At a time of significant potential change and challenge for the legal profession, the Bar’s work has never been more vital. I look forward to working closely with the chair, the officers and committee members of the Bar Council, and colleagues across the profession as together, we shape the future of a strong and independent Bar.”
Morris’s military service began in 1987 and included frontline operational roles, training, human resource management, financial oversight and capability development. He is a former Major General and brings a distinguished record of leadership, having spent most of his career in the Royal Marines, alongside stints in Whitehall at the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office.
For his leadership in Afghanistan, Morris was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 2009 and later the Companion of the Order of the Bath in 2023. After leaving the Marines, he served as director of events at World Sailing before taking his current role. He also volunteers as a mentor for ‘A Band of Brothers’, a charity supporting young men on the margins of the criminal justice system.
Like Morris, Cree also has a military background. He retired from the Royal Navy in 2016 as Rear Admiral, having commanded a destroyer, a task group in the Gulf and the Navy’s operational sea training organisation. His background in corporate transformation and governance, financial and resource planning also mirrors Morris’s: after leaving the Navy, Cree worked in management consultancy and was made a CBE in the 2016 New Year’s Honours.
Mills paid tribute to Cree, saying: “Malcolm has done a fantastic job in leading the Bar Council over the past eight years, strengthening our voice as the representative body for barristers and modernising the way the small but busy staff team performs.
“On behalf of the Bar, I thank Malcolm for his excellent service to our profession and wish him all the very best in his retirement.”
Cree succeeded former civil servant Stephen Crowne as Bar Council CEO in 2017, steering the organisation through the pandemic and the 2025 hacking of the Legal Aid Agency, two major crises affecting barristers.
The pandemic and successive government underfunding of criminal justice also led to two strikes by the criminal Bar and a growing backlog of hearings for criminal cases, resulting in government proposals to reduce the roles of jury trials – something the Bar firmly opposes.
During Cree’s tenure, the Bar Council actively campaigned for greater investment in legal aid and frequently sparred with the Legal Services Board and the Bar Standards Board, its regulators.
Mills, a 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award winner for the Women and Diversity in Law Awards, recently launched a campaign to improve legal aid funding for family barristers in her final weeks in office.
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