The Unethical Environmental Lawyer – Inaugural Lecture on 13 October

Are lawyers who help their clients achieve 'perfectly legal' environmental harms acting unethically? Come hear more at the inaugural lecture of Professor Steven Vaughan at UCL's Faculty of Laws on 13 October at 6pm. This public lecture, open to all, will be in person and live streamed. Inaugurals are traditional lectures given in public to …

The Fog of Lawfare

There’s been quite a brouhaha about David Pannick’s opinion with Jason Pobjoy for Boris Johnson. They argue that in considering whether Boris Johnson committed contempt as a result of misleading parliament, he should have the right to have a lawyer represent him and to cross-examine any witness. Also that the privileges committee is proposing a …

The Rule of Law and Lawyers’ Professional Commitments in the Face of Climate Change

Earlier this year I wrote a blog about lawyers, climate change,. and the rule of law. That was a precursor to a significant conference on climate change and the rule of law that we held at UCL. I've now written up my conference talk into a free-to-access paper. Here's the abstract: Lawyers are everywhere in …

A couple of thoughts on Joshua Rozenberg’s Unforced errors blog

There is an interesting blog from @JoshuaRozenberg on Archie Battersbee’s case, well worth reading, with a response from one of the barristers involved. I tried to comment on the blog itself but could not (paywalled comments) so I tweeted out a thread which I am now blogging, with some additions, here. I don't have any …

Schrödinger’s Threats

Or, Nice little SLAPP tactic you've got there. Shame if anything were to happen to it. Dan Neidle, former Clifford Chance tax partner and now lead of Tax Policy Associates has caused a stir by accusing the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nadim Zahawi of, “a series of unsatisfactory answers about his tax affairs. At …

A few notes…

Conscious that I have neglected the blog a bit, a few notes from me. Firstly, I have taken to writing about the Post Office Scandal here. If you want to follow that please subscribe to the substack (it's free). I wanted to keep this blog from being dominated by PO as important as it is. …

Lateral Fires

There is literature on how the financialisation of law firms, the obsession with PEP, keeping up with the Joneses, lateral hiring, and other forces can weaken the culture and ethicality of law firms (See here in particular). And law firms ability to conduct diligence (on their clients' newly discovered dubiety following the Ukraine fallout) has …

Agency over technocracy: how lawyer archetypes infect regulatory approaches: the FCA example

I am delighted to say a piece I did with Trevor Clark, Steven Vaughan, and Alan Brener has been published Open Access in Legal Ethics. Here is the abstract. it's about why the FCA was wrong to chicken out of bringing legal properly into the Senior Manager's Regime. That sentence was too short for an …

Judges ‘returning to practice’ (a footnote)

A quick postscript Monday's post on the following documents drawn to my attention by a kind reader. A Ministry of Justice Evidence Pack on Judicial Pay 2022/23 dating February this year appears to assume salaried judges cannot return to private practice: Salaried judges are unique in public service in that they are unable to return …

Can and should retired judges advise on live cases?

I have written before about former judges advising clients after they retire from the bench. Now seems an appropriate time to ask if the convention that they do not has ended, and if so, who decided and how. The case I am about to discuss raises a question as to whether the abandoning of the …