* Once it was all kept under wraps. Now the process, at least, of selecting the most senior judge in the land is out in the open. Under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary appoints a selection panel which then advises him of the chosen candidate. If he rejects the choice, he must say why publicly. Chairing the panel is the senior law lord, Lord Bingham of Cornhill. It will be his final legacy before retiring in July. And the hot tip? Still Lord Justice Judge.

* Lord Bingham must have had several portraits done but a new one, by artist David Poole, is now in pride of place in this year’s exhibition by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters at the Mall Galleries, London SW1 (until 1pm on May 11). Of 200 portraits by 100 artists, there are three top legal figures for the first time, says Richard Fitzwilliams, spokesman, the others being Lord Grabiner, QC, leading commercial silk (by Michael Noakes); and Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Angela Reilly).

* A boost for the Law Commission, the law reform body: the Lord Chancellor will now have a statutory duty to report to Parliament annually on plans to implement its proposals. So it’s less easy for good recommendations — such as that on giving greater rights to cohabitees — to languish on the shelf.

* Is it a first? Blake Lapthorn Tarlo Lyons is offering a new life-coaching service — to its clients, not its lawyers. Simon Burge, partner with the firm’s family team, says: “The idea is to help them through the process of divorce.”

* A new (fifth) edition of Halsbury Laws, the standard legal textbook, is out — showing just how much the rate of legislation has shot up. Simon Hetherington, publisher, says that this latest edition has re-arranged subjects to take account, for instance, of the increase in new laws from 7,000 pages of Acts and delegated legislation in 1985 to just under 9,000 in 1990; more than 12,500 in 1995; more than 14,500 in 2006; and between 1990 and 2005, a total of more than 190,000 pages of Westminster legislation. New areas of law since the first edition include competition law, immigration and asylum and pollution and environment law. European law, he says, has also had a huge impact — partly through “its sheer volume of legislation” and, secondly, through its “cultural” impact and the recognition that European law is not an add-on to UK law but an equal part of it.

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