Features

Big wins or hollow victories? Toby Craig and Charles Hale consider crunch time for LASPO 

The business end of the Bill

As the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill begins to round the bend preceding the home straight, the many months of hard lobbying by a significant and varied number of opponents to the Bill has begun to yield fruit. The Government has been left with a bloody nose after losing a succession of key votes in the House of Lords during the Bill’s Report Stage. What we don’t yet know, is whether that fruit will remain intact or wither on the vine as the Bill returns to the House of Commons, where a more effectively whipped and partisan lobby awaits. 

Putting the pieces together. Toby Craig and Charles Hale try to make sense of how the multitudinous legal issues currently before Parliament fit together.  

Sometimes, one could be forgiven for looking across the political terrain; counting up the multitude of issues being debated and wondering if any of it really makes that much sense at all. It is all too easy to focus on particular issues which, understandably, exercise our minds. But, by stepping back and looking at the broader policy framework, sometimes different perspective develops. 

Hon. President: The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Jackson

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

Tuesday 28 February 2012
Seminar: “Experts – their use and abuse”
Moderated by The Hon. Mr Justice Akenhead 

Regret at the loss of beauty, simplicity and mystery from language and the unstoppable spread of “lifeless modern civic terminology”

St. Valentine’s Day, 2012: To assume is to presume” Jude Morgan, Indiscretion.

However classless society becomes, you never turn down an invitation from a High Court judge. That covering of scarlet, flashed with white fur and black scarf, still thrills the senses in a way sadly.not achieved by circuit purple. The difference is that the original robes evolved from real costumes worn in a genuine context when the House of Plantaganet was in its final flower. You cannot create uniforms any more than you can create cities...hence Milton Keynes.

Deveral Capps examines the largest review of legal education for 40 years 

It has been over 40 years since legal education as a whole was reviewed in England and Wales. In 1971, the Ormrod review investigated the relationship between the legal profession and universities and considered how lawyers should be trained. The review took three years to complete and has, by and large, led to the system of legal education that we have today. Since then, large-scale reviews of the law, legal practice and legal training have taken place, though these have focused more on the practise of law rather than the training of lawyers. For example in 1979 the Benson Report, or more formally the Royal Commission on Legal Services, gave rise to the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 and in 2004, the Clementi Review led to the Courts and Legal Services Act 2007. 

At the 2011 Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year awards, Marc Willers received the award for Barrister of the Year. He talks about the practice he has developed and in particular about his representation of Gypsies and Travellers

I was very surprised and truly honoured to receive the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year (LALY) award in 2011. It was a real privilege to be handed the award by Doreen Lawrence who has worked tirelessly to obtain justice for her son, Stephen, and in doing so has forced our society to acknowledge and address institutional racism. 

District Judge Nicholas Crichton has been described as “a family justice pioneer.” With funding for the Family Drug and Alcohol Court pilot scheme due to end on 31 March, he talks to Ffyon Reilly about its future.  

Nicholas Crichton has been the resident district judge at the Inner London Family Proceedings Court since 1997 and a district judge for 25 years. He chairs the Voice of the Child sub-committee of the Family Justice Council. He has worked internationally on various projects in the field of child protection, most notably in Bulgaria where he has visited all 28 family courts and visited many specialist institutions. He is a passionate advocate for children’s rights and was the driving force behind the setting up of the award winning Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) in 2008. I spoke with him at court early in January when the issue of future funding for FDAC was uncertain. 

Job title : Silk, Guildhall Chambers, Bristol

Christopher Quinlan QC practises from Guildhall Chambers, Bristol as a member of the Sports Law team. Guildhall Chambers was recently voted “Chambers of the Year” by Legal Week. Its 73 members (including 7 silks) offer expertise from within specialist teams also covering crime, commercial, employment, insolvency, personal injury & clinical negligence and property.

Graham Howard recounts his recent interview in Zimbabwe with the country’s minister of Education, Sport and Culture, Senator David Coltart.  

“Zimbabwe’s economy, although still in poor shape, has stabilised - inflation is down to below 4% and the economy grew 9% last year. Schools and hospitals are open again and life is gradually improving. Human rights abuses have lessened dramatically.” 

Senator David Coltart. 

Chairman of the Young Barristers’ Committee David Nicholls and  James Evans of the COMBAR Africa Committee report on their visit  to the Law Society of Zimbabwe’s Summer School in Nyanga.  

When I was asked by the previous Chairman of the Young Barristers’ Committee if I would like to visit Zimbabwe in order to launch the Buddying Scheme that has been set up by the Bar Council and the Law Society of Zimbabwe (“LSZ”), my first reaction was one of complete horror. For over 10 years, the only news from Zimbabwe has been dire: political and racial violence, endemic corruption, hyper-inflation and rigged elections have emptied the bread basket of Africa.