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The BBC, Lord McAlpine and libel law

The past week has seen a series of extraordinary events arising out of a BBC Newsnight broadcast about sexual abuse in children's homes in North Wales in the 1970s and 1980s. This led to the wide dissemination of false allegations against the former C...

12 Nov 2012 | 10:16 | 1 comment

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inner image What does the board want from its legal advisers?

As a result of my experience leading a company for a period earlier this year, I've been asked on several occasions to speak to groups of lawyers about the role of a company's in-house legal department when viewed from the CEO's chair. The exact qu...

05 Nov 2012 | 16:49 | 2 comments

inner image Why we allow dissent – by our judges

Why do judges disagree and publish their disagreements when cases get decided? After all, the Cabinet does not do so (openly at least), and our FTSE 100 companies do not generally do so, when their executives propose a merger or launch a new product. ...

01 Nov 2012 | 16:41

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Neuberger on Erskine - the importance of the independence of the judiciary

It is rare that one comes across a speech which is such a pleasure to read as the Seckford lecture by the President of the Supreme Court (Lord Neuberger) at Woodbridge School 18 October - Lord Erskine and Trial by Jury (Acknowledgment: Supreme Court -...

25 Oct 2012 | 13:37

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Growth is dead, part 3: do partners have unrealistic expectations about pay?

Our third installment in this series addresses partner expectations. Here's the problem: There's about to be a collision with reality. Let's start with some data. In the quarter century since the The American Lawyer first published the Am Law 10...

19 Oct 2012 | 15:31

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Let's play master and servant: the curious relationship between barrister and clerk

"There is a well-known clerking phrase 'when a barrister is busy it’s because they are brilliant, when they are quiet it’s because their clerk isn’t doing enough'..."

12 Oct 2012 | 14:24

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(Another) Bar Standards Board faux pas?

Baroness Deech, the chair of the Bar Standards Board (BSB), recently gave an interesting speech on legal education and legal regulation. It appears from the text of the speech that it was given to a group of South African lawyers. It begins: "There...

11 Oct 2012 | 12:38 | 1 comment

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Growth is dead, part 2: how an oversupply of lawyers is hurting the profession

Welcome to the second installment of 'Growth is Dead': Our topic for today is excess capacity. Let's start with overall supply of new lawyers, which is the font of everything else.

03 Oct 2012 | 16:56 | 1 comment

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The problem with conscientious lawyers

"Our legal department is always busy (have you ever met a lawyer who isn’t busy? As a profession we’ve trademarked (new verb) 'Always Busy' as a tag line), but we’ve recently had a spike, which has pushed us from 'busy and just about treading w...

01 Oct 2012 | 12:29

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Growth is dead, part 1: law firm financials in the wake of the recession

If you believe the structural environment for Big Law hasn't fundamentally changed since 2008, the series I'm inaugurating today is not for you. (I would also have to ask, from a mystified perspective and in the kindest of ways, if you're paying atten...

20 Sep 2012 | 16:55 | 2 comments

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French privacy law, media cynicism and the likely penalties for publishing the Kate Middleton pics

There is little doubt about the legal position: the publication of topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge by “Closer” magazine in France was illegal. The taking and publishing of the photographs constituted a criminal offence and a civil...

17 Sep 2012 | 08:30

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The unwritten rules of clerking

I have been extremely fortunate in my career to work for some excellent senior clerks. They have all had their own styles and idiosyncrasies which must in some way have molded my own brand of clerking. They all had two things in common; they needed a ...

12 Sep 2012 | 11:40 | 1 comment

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One rule for some? Double standards on lawyer tactics

There’s an interesting side-swipe at media lawyers from Lord Walker quoted on the UKSC blog in discussing privacy injunctions. “The development of this branch of the law in England has undoubtedly been accelerated by the egregious conduct of th...

06 Sep 2012 | 14:25

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Rethinking the firm/client relationship - a conversation with Axiom CEO Mark Harris

If one party to an exchange is satisfied and one is miserable, somebody struck a terrific bargain. But if both parties are miserable, the exchange needs to be reconceived from the ground up. The law firm/client relationship was, he felt, firmly in the...

06 Sep 2012 | 13:07

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Defining value in law firm billing: art or science?

The question should not perhaps be can we trust our advisers on fees. But instead, can we trust ourselves to kick this debate into the long grass at some point in the next five years? Because if we can’t, then perhaps we’re not doing our own jobs...

04 Sep 2012 | 12:32 | 2 comments

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