Features

One thousand vessels sailed past the Queen on the Thames to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. Max Hardy was on one of them...   

In 1612, barristers sailed down the Thames on the royal barge, accompanied by small boats and by musicians, in order to perform a masque in honour of the marriage of James I’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Four hundred years later, I took part in a similar ceremony to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Princess Elizabeth’s namesake and descendant. 

David Wurtzel on listening to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in a panel discussion on the rule of law organised by the LSE and the Burma Justice Committee.  

‘We cannot escape from the rule of law’, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi stated when taking part in a ‘roundtable discussion’ in a packed Peacock Theatre on June 19, during her historic visit to the United Kingdom. She was one of the six people who appeared on the panel and what she had to say was heard last. ‘I will listen’ she declared at the beginning. 

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 introduces contingency fees into main-stream litigation. Timothy Mayer considers whether this change also brings with it a potential adverse costs risks for lawyers where a claim is unsuccessful.
 

When Graeme Hall was asked to coordinate a project on death row in Uganda, he expected the prisons to be desperately depressing places. Little did he realise that the court room could be just as bad.  

In 2011, I was extremely fortunate to be selected by the Centre for Capital Punishment Studies (CCPS) to become the coordinator for a project on death row in Kampala, Uganda. CCPS is an NGO and research department within Westminster Law School which undertakes numerous pioneering activities globally in support of moves to abolish the death penalty. During six months in Uganda, I started a project which aims to increase the capacity of Ugandan defence lawyers representing those charged with capital offences (known as ‘state briefs’). This article offers a flavour of my experiences in a country whose immense beauty is mired by a brutal and bloody recent past, and whose justice system remains shackled by antiquated colonial laws, practices and prejudices. 

In a two part feature, Graham Cunningham looks at the new guidelines  on Information Security; in part 1, he examines the guidelines  regarding electronic devices.  

There is good news; and there is bad news. The good news is that there are only two or three barristers on the ‘ICO list’. The bad news, in these harsh economic times, is that you could be spending a lot of your increasingly hard-earned cash on paying administrative penalties to the Government. 

In April of this year David Green CB QC became Director of the Serious Fraud Office. Shane Collery interviewed him for Counsel 

David Green took up his appointment as Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) on 23 April 2012.

After 25 years in criminal practice at 18 Red Lion Court, he was appointed Director of the newly-established Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO) in December 2004. A report by HMCPSI in July 2009 concluded that RCPO had succeeded in its key task of restoring public and judicial confidence in Customs prosecutions. When RCPO was merged with CPS in 2010, David became Director of the CPS Central Fraud Group, before returning to the Bar at 6 Kings Bench Walk in April 2011.  

Jacqueline Kinghan, Director of Clinical Legal Education at UCL Faculty of Laws, examines the continuing role of the undergraduate law degree in the light of the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR). 

The Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) recently published a discussion paper with suggestions for simplifying the structure of legal education and ensuring it is fit for purpose. The proposals – including whether to abolish the qualifying law degree – have re-ignited the all too familiar skills versus scholarship debate in legal education. Several leading academics have criticised the LLB as a poor combination of a liberal arts programme with arbitrarily-selected technical legal skills. In some camps, a graduate programme or Bar Exam like that in the US has been a suggested preferred course. Rebecca Huxley-Binns at NTU appears to favour the retention of the degree but proposes that the core subjects be taught around ‘intellectual professional legal skills’ such as drafting, writing, reasoning and commercial awareness. 

Jacqueline Kinghan, Director of Clinical Legal Education at UCL Faculty of Laws, examines the continuing role of the undergraduate law degree in the light of the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR). 

The Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) recently published a discussion paper with suggestions for simplifying the structure of legal education and ensuring it is fit for purpose. The proposals – including whether to abolish the qualifying law degree – have re-ignited the all too familiar skills versus scholarship debate in legal education. Several leading academics have criticised the LLB as a poor combination of a liberal arts programme with arbitrarily-selected technical legal skills. In some camps, a graduate programme or Bar Exam like that in the US has been a suggested preferred course. Rebecca Huxley-Binns at NTU appears to favour the retention of the degree but proposes that the core subjects be taught around ‘intellectual professional legal skills’ such as drafting, writing, reasoning and commercial awareness. 

Hassan Khan and Claire Fox, Co-Chairs of the Bar Lesbian and Gay Group, on expanding the remit of BLAGG. 

Is it OK to be Gay at the Bar? Will the Bar Standards Board’s new Equality Rules make a difference?

In 2011, we became co-chairs of the Bar Lesbian and Gay Group (BLAGG) which was formed in 1994 by a group of students at the Inns of Court School of Law. We now have over 300 members across the profession including students, pupils, barristers and Queen’s Counsel. BLAGG’s primary aim is to support lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender members, at whatever stage they are in the profession, whether or not they are ‘out’ or if they simply wish to socialise and meet fellow members of the Bar. We provide information, advice and support, particularly to those wishing to join the profession. 

A busy week, but now at least we all know how to chillax. Toby Craig and Charles Hale examine Coalition ideology, the state of the Union and judicial power 

Dave says Chillax

Sitting down after Sunday lunch and a few glasses of wine to write WW is enough to make anyone feel Prime Ministerial. Or suitably chillaxed at any rate, as the kids would (probably never) say.   Yes, we now know how our trusty leader likes to unwind. Though hardly revelatory, it did set WW to thinking of previous inhabitants of Number 10. Whether Macmillan’s appetite for Trollope, Ted Heath’s penchant for the conductor’s baton or John Major’s love of leather on willow, there is a strong tradition of premiers finding suitable ways to unwind from an extremely stressful role. If Dave favours a good claret and a tennis session then who are we to object, providing he keeps his eye on the ball?