Legal Profession

News, analysis, comment and updates from ICLR's case law and UK legislation platform

Trappists v Spinners: shaping the legal discourse

How should judges communicate with the public? Should they, as that exemplary Conservative Lord Chancellor Lord Kilmuir exhorted them back in the 1950s, remain silent and aloof, preserving their mystique (and that of the law), or should they “descend into the arena” and take up arms with the media on their own turf, seeking to Continue reading

CSA Inquiry – will chair be shown the door?

Fiona Woolf, who has been appointed to chair the government inquiry into historic child sex abuse (CSA), recently appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons, effectively to answer the charge that she was not a suitable or proper person to undertake the role. She was appointed after the resignation of Continue reading

Principles on social media conduct for lawyers

Given the popularity of social media among members of the legal profession, particularly Twitter (an ideal medium for the robust adversarial exchange of views), it is not surprising that regulatory bodies should wish to promote its use in a responsible and professional manner. This post was updated on 12 July 2014. The International Bar Association Continue reading

Life at the Bar: A North-South Divide?

Barristers’ Working Lives: a second biennial survey of the Bar (2013) was jointly published by the Bar Council and Bar Standards Board on 18 June. In this post, we look at some of the results and implications of this snapshot of life at the Bar. In particular, we look at the effect of cuts in Continue reading

PDS, PDQ! Operation Cotton and Operation (saving the MOJ’s) Bacon

Yesterday the Court of Appeal roundly allowed an appeal by the prosecuting authority and the Secretary of State for Justice (intervening, or as some might suggest, interfering) against the trial judge’s decision to stay a major fraud case by reason of the unavailability of counsel for five legally aided defendants. The case has aroused a Continue reading

Silk – where strife imitates art

How does a prime time TV series about the law satisfy both the public curiosity about the legal profession and its practices, and the respect of practitioners themselves who would like to see a mirror held up to their nature? And just how true-to-life can the characters get when one of them steps out of Continue reading

McKenzie Frenzy: regulating the irregulars

The Legal Services Consumer Panel (LSCP) recently proposed an investigation into the so-called “professional” McKenzie Friend market amid concerns that consumers (litigants in person) are being exploited and abused. Perhaps surprisingly, given how obsessively the legal professions are currently regulated, these self-appointed in-court helpers are not subject to any code of practice, let alone formal Continue reading

HHJ Pennyweather: Young barristers need to up their game

More musings from the bench with the most honourable and learned HHJ Pennyweather   Now here’s something I never thought I’d hear myself say: it’s high time that barristers started being a little more confident. Now, I’m not talking about their current woes with the government. Nor am I talking about established members of the Continue reading

Mandela remembered: a lawyer for all seasons – via The IBA

The following message is shared from website of the International Bar Association, the global voice of the legal profession, with which ICLR, as a regular exhibitor at the IBA annual conference, is glad to be associated. IBA mourns and celebrates Nelson Mandela, Founding Honorary President of its Human Rights Institute The International Bar Association (IBA) Continue reading