Features

Counsel interviews The Secret Barrister, who started out as a counterweight to media misinformation and is the third legal commentator in a row named Independent Blogger of the Year (Comment Awards 2016)  

Where did the inspiration come from for the blog? 

Fees are still too low, but the Bar has developed a better settlement for criminal practitioners to reward advocacy in a fairer and more transparent way. Now it’s up to the profession to make their voices heard and respond to the consultation, as Daniel Oscroft explains  

Ask most criminal barristers to tell you if there is a future at the criminal Bar and you will be told, ‘No’.  

Jonathan Fisher QC and Anita Clifford discuss their recent experiences in Albania where they led a workshop on the challenges presented by tax evasion and money laundering in a transitional economy  

Working in London, as policymakers proceed with implementing the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (‘4MLD’), it is easy to lose sight of the challenges experienced by transitioning democracies in the fight against financial crime.  

HHJ Simon Drew QC and Lynda Gibbs explain why the pan-profession s 28 and ‘advocacy and the vulnerable’ training – being delivered to over 14,000 criminal advocates over the next two years – heralds a sea change  

Twenty-seven years ago, the Pigot Committee proposed a mechanism to allow for the whole of a young child’s evidence to take place out of court, in advance.  

The Supreme Court’s treatment of the devolution issues in Miller is troubling, argues Aidan O’Neill QC, who examines the UK’s complex multi-national constitutional history and potential impact on the devolved political constitution  

Miller reveals the malleability of the parliamentary sovereignty doctrine, argues Professor Mark Elliott in his examination of the many tensions which lie at the heart of the majority judgment  

There are few aspects of the modern British constitution that the Supreme Court’s judgment in Miller does not at least engage (R (on the application of Miller and Dos Santos) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and associated references  [2017] UKSC 5).  

Damian Hickman offers an insight into the challenges of running a busy international arbitration centre –from debugging services, extra-large entourages and last-minute visa requests  

Writing in the Global Arbitration Review in May 2016, J William Rowley QC emphasised that ‘the importance of excellent, purpose-built arbitration hearing facilities cannot be over-estimated in the choice of… seat’.  

Directed by Emmy Award® winner Mick Jackson (Temple Grandin ) and adapted for the screen by BAFTA and Academy Award® nominated writer David Hare (The Reader ).
Release date: 27 January 

Gregory Jones QC relays a short history of barristers’ haunt ‘Farringdon Without’. Never a place for grey-suited City workers, the ward’s past has been a radical and bloody one but in its own way continues to move with the times  

As the largest of the 25 wards, Farringdon Without possesses a diversity of trades and professions greater than any other part of the City of London.  

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).