Hong Kong Questions

David Perry QC’s decision to act in the Hong Kong prosecution of nine defendants on two charges of unauthorized assembly has come in for a great deal of criticism. This includes the current (Conservative) Foreign Secretary, a former (Labour) Lord Chancellor, and other legal luminaries, politicians and lawyers. The press reports, and comments garnered from …

NDA, Redacted

The multiple ironies of what happened here, early in the Covid-crisis, will not be lost on many. The SDT have stayed the SRA's prosecution of Mark Mansell for professional misconduct. The case arises out of the NDAs negotiated for Harvey Weinstein against Zelda Perkins and Rowena Chiu. The saga ends, if it has ended, where …

In honour of Deborah Rhode

Steven and I have been moved by the untimely death of Professor Deborah Rhode. Deborah was one of the giants of legal ethics. She has shown great personal kindness to many legal ethics scholars, and written many great works. As it happens last week we were finalising a chapter on leading works on ethics for …

On deliberate contempt as professional martyrdom

A personal Statement from 'barrister' and director of plan.b earth (published yesterday) Tim Crosland has caused a stir, because of an apparently deliberate and pre-meditated breaching of a Supreme Court embargo on its decision on Heathrow’s Third Runway (published today). It began like this: Tomorrow, 16 December, the Supreme Court will publish its judgement on …

Personal Lives and Professional Principles: Beckwith, Integrity and the High Court

Does it matter that a regulatory rulebook contains professional principles that are headlines only and have no detailed content? To what extent is it ok for those engaged in professional discipline to be interested in the private lives of professional people? These are the two main substantive questions (although not framed in that way...) in …

Beckwith 2: the SDT’s card should be marked

A quick post from me, based on my tweets yesterday, on the overturning of the SDT decision in the Beckwith case. I blogged about the original decision here. This is what I said of note: The SDT is not as clear as we might hope about what is the behaviour that is being criticised here …

Is Law Tech augmented lawyering?

John Armour, Richard Parnham and Mari Sako have put up an interesting paper on ‘Augmented Lawyering’. The central aim is to consider what impact artificial intelligence and “associated digital technology” will have on the work of lawyers and the structure of law firms. It is an empirical study based on 52 interviews and a survey …

Integrity, independence, and culture: not a Russian problem, a professional problem

The Navigator Equities v Deripaska [2020] EWHC 1798 (Comm) provides an interesting account of a troubling case. It raises questions about the conduct of the case by a Clifford Chance partner. It left me wondering if the SRA needs to conduct a thematic review of the area. And whilst it is tempting to ask again …

Tweeters for Law Students

I wanted to put together a list for (law) students interested in twitter as to who from the world of law they might want to follow. I did a tweet to garner views. It produced dozens and dozens of recommendations. You can read those here. Here is my off the cuff list of people to …

Broken Models are Made not Born

The Bridge report, funded by a plurality of the biggest London HQed law firms, has produced an excellent report on class, race, and gender in law firms. Data driven excellence, presented with a keen eye on its busy audiences. This quote sums it up for me: “I can’t stand more debate. Let’s get something done.” …