Features

Taryn Lee QC outlines the benefits of the Bar Placement Week initiative . 

If you were in court in London or Birmingham in July and your opposite counsel was accompanied by an earnest-looking youth, you may be forgiven for thinking “my goodness, solicitors are getting younger”. In fact, you might have been standing opposite a “mentor barrister” with their Bar Placement Week student. Bar Placement Week is an extraordinary initiative that places high-achieving Year 12 students from low income backgrounds with barristers from a whole host of practice areas across London and Birmingham. 

John Wilson QC examines a ground-breaking Supreme Court ruling on the separate identity of a corporate entity . 

Prest v Petrodel Resources Ltd & Others  [2013] UKSC 34; [2013] All ER (D) 90 (Jun), is a landmark case which is of considerable interest to corporate and insolvency lawyers, as well as family lawyers. It will cited for years to come although, in another way perhaps, it merely burnishes the pedestal of the ground-breaking case of Salomon v A. Salomon & Co Ltd  [1897] AC 22. Salomon  established the broad inviolability of the separate identity of a corporate entity. This is something we now take for granted, but it was then a far more radical concept. A. Salomon & Co Ltd was not Mr Salomon, even though he was the only shareholder in the company. They stood side by side as separate legal personalities. Mr Salomon did not stand behind A. Salomon & Co Ltd in the eyes of the law. 

A day in the life of a single mother at the Bar. By Gulshanah Choudhuri  

A typical day would see me crawling from my bed at around 7am, asking the girls to get up. Once the mele of breakfast is sorted, uniforms on, rucksacks packed, I head off to two different schools for my daughters. Rayhanah, aged 5, attends a private school not far from her sister, Ambreen, aged 8 and a half, whose school is a mile down the road. She is bright and sociable and attends a mainstream school, despite her having Down’s Syndrome. She’s very in tune to the day I’m at court or at work as I will have departed from my normal attire of tracksuit bottoms and make-up free face to other end of the spectrum: power suit, make up and jewellery, statement heels. Her reaction is always: “Work Mummy? Beautiful Mummy, like a princess,” followed by: “who pick you up?” 

The theme of this year’s Employed Bar Conference was regulation. Melissa Coutinho takes a look . 

The recent Employed Bar Conference (EBC) was particularly successful this time, according to the feedback from those who attended. That the weather was good, the subject matter topical, speakers varied and the venue, the plush offices of Stephenson Harwood LLP, could not have hurt. The title of the conference: “Regulation: carrot or stick, here to stay” was designed to cover as many practice areas as possible, to reflect the diversity of the Employed Bar. Everyone agreed that at least some of the programme was particularly pertinent to them, but as usual, areas that were unfamiliar to many in their professional lives, nonetheless stimulated interest. 

Allergic reactions to press releases from the Ministry of Justice  

July 12, 2013: “Life could be horrible in the wrong trouser of time.” Terry Pratchett  

Barristers possess certain genetic self-protection, such as the ability to limit outbursts of terror, anger and panic to brief moments. The usual triggers for these uncontrollable emotions are entry into the Royal Courts of Justice (terror), a visit to the clerks’ room (anger) and listening to a client’s explanation of his defence (panic). The attacks are generally best alleviated by going into court and doing something, or going into El Vino’s and drinking something. Additional triggers, often evoking a combination of all three states at once, include communications from HMRC, the Bar Standards Board or the Bank. Drink is the preferred soporific in these cases. 

Some in the legal world are absenting themselves from the general handwringing, and planning instead how they can turn the uncertainty to their advantage. Adam Sampson examines the shifting legal scene  

As I write many lawyers are rallying around a “Save the Legal Industry” campaign while making dire predictions of job losses in the hundreds of thousands – and all within the space of a year. Ringing a similar death knell, the Solicitors Regulation Authority is telling firms to prepare for the worst and establish contingency plans for insolvency. At first glance, it would appear the four horsemen of the legal apocalypse are cantering ever closer, fed by changes to the legal market and the tightening of legal incomes. 

18 June saw a Bar Council sponsored Legal Aid Question Time being held at Church House to discuss the Government’s consultation paper.  Counsel’s David Wurtzel was there  

After 16,000 responses were sent to the Ministry of Justice, was there anything left to say about the Government’s consultation paper, Transforming Legal Aid: delivering a more credible and efficient system ? Apparently so, as the Bar Council sponsored Legal Aid Question Time  at Church House in London on 18 June. A panel consisting of Maura McGowan QC, Chairman of the Bar, Lord McNally, Minister of State in charge of Legal Aid, Andy Slaughter MP, Shadow Minister for Legal Aid, and Steve Hynes of the Legal Action Group, was deftly chaired by Joshua Rozenberg. In the hour’s session, he made sure that all the speakers had a chance to give their views and where appropriate to have a right of reply. Succinctness was duly rewarded. In the audience were lawyers, journalists, civil servants and students, joined by a wider audience following it live on Twitter. 

At a service of Choral Evensong in Temple Church in June, in honour of Magna Carta and to celebrate the Inns’ Amity, the Lord Chief Justice gave an address, which he summarises for  Counsel.  

"39. No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land

40. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice" 

Daphne Perry suggests ways to make a fleshy skeleton more appealing to the judge . 

Question: You are writing a skeleton argument. How long should it be?...
  

Job title
Chief Executive Officer, Parklane Plowden 

Parklane Plowden is a large set of chambers in Leeds and Newcastle, comprising over 80 members and specialising in four key practice areas: Personal Injury & Clinical Negligence; Family; Employment and Chancery & Commercial.