Features

With a disturbing rise in deaths due to poor care, abuse or neglect in hospitals and care homes, Zia Akhtar examines the impact of the new criminal offence of wilful neglect. Will it improve or undermine the safety of vulnerable patients?  

The offence of ‘wilful neglect’ is a new offence under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 (CJCA 2015) under which there is criminal liability where a person has been placed under the care of a medical professional in a hospital or care home (s 20), or under private home care (s21).  

Author: Stephen Gold
Publisher: Bath Publishing (2016) 
Format: Paperback 517pp and e-book 
ISBN: 9780993583605 

Family arbitration is hitting its stride: the IFLA scheme successfully resolving financial disputes and keeping families out of court has now been extended to children cases. Janet Bazley QC and Gavin Smith explain how it works  

Contrast two very different scenarios. In the first, you turn up at court for a family hearing to find that you are listed in front of a non-specialist judge.  

Chance meetings produce a traditional Christmas  

‘Revenge is profitable; gratitude is expensive.’ – Edward Gibbon 

As momentum builds towards reform, the Indian Supreme Court will soon rule on whether foreign lawyers have the right to practise in India. Ekwall Singh Tiwana outlines the long-running debate  

The debate on whether foreign lawyers should be allowed entry into the protective legal market of India has been raging for nearly two decades.  

Identified as one of the four biggest threats to UK security, cyber attacks are not limited to corporate giants or election tampering. Chambers are equally at risk, as Colin Nicholls QC explains  

Cyber security is acknowledged to be one of the greatest threats to business around the world, with a global cost estimated at $445bn, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Global Risks Report.  

Six months on from the ‘quiet revolution’, Theresa May’s vision for post-Brexit Britain is becoming clearer. Mark Hatcher examines the Prime Minister’s domestic agenda  

A little over six months after she was appointed Prime Minister last July, and barely eight weeks before the government formally invokes Art 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, Theresa May’s vision for post-Brexit Britain is becoming clearer.  

Nick Hill explains how the Institute of Barristers’ Clerks and clerking community are working with the Bar to help drive the wellbeing initiative  

At the Bar Conference in October the Wellbeing at the Bar  website was launched, providing information, advice and support for those working at or with the Bar.  

Edited by: Ros Burnett
Publisher: Oxford University Press (2016)
Format: Hardcover 336pp 
​ISBN: 9780198723301 

As the 2016-17 Silk cohort is announced, Counsel probes the appointments system with the Chairman of the Queen’s Counsel Selection Panel, Helen Pitcher OBE  

Q  The basic principle of Queen’s Counsel Appointments (QCA) has always been that the process should be open, fair and transparent. But over the years, the process itself has been refined. What have been the major changes and how were the lessons learned – that is, how was it determined that something else would work better?