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 …

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.” …

That blog about my friend

Thank you again all of you. for the lovely messages and comments and DMs on this blog. It's been so overwhelming, beautiful, and touching, I think I need to stem the tide a bit, and take the post down. I hope everyone understands. Remember the feeling and send those emails! Private time now.

What should COVID-19 CEOs do about The Mayson Report Section 4.12, if anything?

This guest post by Ciarán Fenton first appeared on his blog. On the morning of June 11th. 2020 The Centre for Ethics and Law, University College London, published a report written by Professor Stephen Mayson with the title: “REFORMING LEGAL SERVICES – REGULATION BEYOND THE ECHO CHAMBERS – FINAL REPORT of the Independent Review of …

Whoops, I did it again! Online justice design flaw?

Barclays’ solicitors have had to apologise after one of their solicitors was caught by members of the public in an online court room badmouthing their opponent’s witness, Amanda Stavely. It reminded me of some of the parlour tricks one heard Crown Court advocates might try on TV, if not in real life. That it is …

SQE -Underpowered after all these years

There's an interesting story on Legal Cheek about the SQE. Existing evidence, informed readers will recall, suggests there may be an EDI problem with the assessment. They have been warned about this periodically, it is (I believe, and stand to be corrected) a known problem with some of the medical equivalents, and their assessment of …