* Never one to miss an opening, David Gold, the senior partner of Herbert
Smith, took full advantage of the inaugural awards at his firm’s City
offices this week for the first Times/Herbert Smith Student Advocacy
Competition. It was a chance, he said, to put advocacy by solicitors
on the map — and he urged winning contestants to consider forging a career
in the solicitors’ branch of the profession, rather than the Bar. So
impressed were his staff with Hannah Klein, the winner, that one said: “Make
sure she is on our Christmas card list.”
* The topic of the competition was diversity, so it was timely that
just days before two more women were appointed to the High Court Bench
(where they join Mrs Justice Rafferty, who presented the prizes, complete
with excellent tips on how to be even better advocates). In all five High
Court judges have been appointed: QCs Philip Sales, Richard Arnold, Nigel
Sweeney, and the two women, Sonia Proudman and Elizabeth Slade.
The latest stats from the Judicial Communications Office (April 2008) show
that 11 of the 110 High Court judges were women: five years ago, there were
six — the new appointees take the total now to 14.
* Celebrations were short-lived: within hours of hearing that UK lawyers had
helped to win Jack Alderman, longest-serving prisoner on death row in
America, a last-ditch clemency hearing, news came of his execution. A letter
he wrote, poignantly titled A Day in the Life of Death, is published
today on Law online. Jeremy Sandelson, partner with Clifford Chance
whose legal team acted pro bono for Alderman along with Richard Lissack,
QC, of Outer Temple Chambers, said: “We have battled for more than a year to
overturn Alderman’s original sentence. The execution of a man after 33 years
on death row will strike many people, both for or against the death penalty,
as unjust, futile and a travesty of justice.”
* Before the High Court challenge on October 2 over assisting a suicide
brought by Debbie Purdy, the MS sufferer, ministers have said that
they want to simplify the law. But the upshot is just to modernise
language, making it easier to understand that assisting a suicide is a
criminal offence — even online. So the High Court action, it is hoped, could
still clarify when a prosecution is likely if someone helps another to take
his or her life.
* The RHS floral celebration at the Inner Temple last week was
hugely successful. Water Cooler arrived fashionably late - when the morning
crowd had trooped off for lunch and the sun had come out (timing is
everything). We found it easy to spend our money, but the real stars of the
show were the herbaceous borders produced by head gardener Andrea
Brunsendorf and her staff. We hope they'll do it again next year.
* Joanna Glynn, QC, is the latest coup at One Crown Office Row,
bringing to four the number of women silks at the chambers. It
may not sound much to boast about but as Bob Wilson, the chambers’ director,
puts it, it is a “significant milestone very few leading chambers have
achieved”.
Glynn, who comes from 23 Essex Street, has built a strong practice in medical
and financial crime, specialising in professional disciplinary and
regulatory work — an area that fits well with One Crown Office Row’s
expertise in the field. Philip Havers, QC, head of chambers, said: “We are
delighted to welcome Joanna who is already well known to many of us here
from her work in the General Medical Council and other professional
disciplinary bodies. Her practice there, in related regulatory work and in
medical crime, make for an excellent fit with us.”
* Meanwhile, in another lateral move, Hardwicke Building, headed by
Nigel Jones, QC, has taken on the employment barristers Sarah Malik and
Zeeshan Dhar from 7 New Square, bringing Hardwicke’s numbers to 79
and moving it into the 2008 top 30 chambers ranking.
* After the Lehman bankruptcy, ministers should be cautious about
moves to legislate so as to give creditors greater protection, a
banking lawyer has said this week. Such changes could make matters worse by
damaging the banking sector and driving business abroad, according to Simon
Gleeson, a Clifford Chance partner. The financial services specialist
says that the changes would give the State power to vary the terms of
contracts between solvent businesses: “This undermines the principle of
legal certainty, which is essential to the efficient operation of capital
markets.
“The Government couldn’t pick a worse time to heap extra burdens on the UK
banking industry.” The result? An increase in the cost of doing business in
the UK — with businesses driven abroad, he added.
* Businesses are bracing themselves for a fresh legal onslaught in the
face of 59 laws coming into force on October 1, according to
Sweet & Maxwell. The date is the second of the annual “red tape days”
when the Government introduces a raft of business-related legislation.
Earlier this year, on April 6, it brought in 82 laws affecting business.
Among changes coming into force are new regulations for directors, forcing
them to make more detailed disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
(board approval may be needed before a director can accept gratuities or
corporate hospitality); an increase in the minimum wage from £5.52 to £5.73
an hour; and regulations on how to calculate the cash value of a pension
when a member of a company pension scheme wants to transfer to another
scheme.
* Two plays take the mystery of what happened at Deepcut Barracks as
their theme. Deep Cut won plaudits at the Edinburgh Fringe this
summer and will be closely followed by Geoff Dead; Disco for sale
which opens in Newcastle next month. The latter takes a close look at the
families of Geoff Gray and James Collinson, two of the young
people who lost their lives at the Surrey base. John Cooper, who acted for
the families, is represented in the play that covers their fight to find out
who is accountable for the death of their children. Meanwhile, the families
have started a campaign for a public inquiry into the circumstances of the
shootings, with a website (deepcutfamiliesfightforjustice.co.uk)
linking to a petition on 10 Downing Street’s website.
* Sharia courts are back in the news with reports that they are
operating in several cities — and are enforceable in the English justice
system. Lawyers say, however, that Sharia is no more enforceable than any
other religious community courts — such as the Beth Din courts operated by
the Jewish community. If either party went to court with a ruling from a
Sharia court, it would be upheld only if the court independently would reach
the same conclusion — in other words, if it complied with the law. Geraldine
Morris, a family expert with LexisNexis, said: “It remains that the only way
to divorce in this country is through the family courts, but religious
courts may have a role to play in mediation between estranged couples.” She
said that many Sharia courts did not recognise that husbands could divorce
wives by pronouncing the talaq three times — but even if they did “such
action would certainly not result in a divorce under the laws of England and
Wales”. In other areas Sharia was more ahead, she added, such as in
recognising marriage contracts setting out provisions in the event of a
divorce. In the court system they are not binding although they are
increasingly persuasive. In short, Muslims in this country needed to be both
married and divorced under the law of the land — although Islamic marriages
and divorces conducted in Muslim countries were recognised as valid in the
UK. As with Jewish communities, the role of community courts is largely
limited to mediation and the grant of a religious divorce. The Sharia courts
could be no different, she said. “Where concern should arise is when a
religious court purports to replace the family court — there is only one
system of family law in the UK and it should be open to all who need it.”
* BPP has secured a deal with five City law firms — Freshfields,
Herbert Smith, Lovells, Norton Rose and Slaughter and May — to be the
national provider for their trainees studying the Graduate Diploma in Law.
The five already send trainees to BPP Law School for the Legal Practice
Course. It won’t unduly worry Nigel Savage, of the College of Law — he has
his own deal, with Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance and Linklaters for its
bespoke LPC. It recently sealed an agreement to be the exclusive provider
from September next year for the City office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen &
Hamilton, the international firm.
* The cost of medical negligence has soared — with the annual bill for
England and Wales topping £90 million. The NHS Litigation Authority has put
the increase, which has more than doubled over four years, down to claims by
lawyers doing “no win, no fee” work, which, it says, has led to some
solicitors being paid rates of £600 an hour. By contrast, fees charged by
the NHS’s own lawyers have risen by only 48 per cent to a total of £43.3
million last year. The number of cases resolved has remained about the same
at 6,000.
Paul Rumley, from Withy King Solicitors, has hit back, saying a direct
comparison of lawyers’ costs is impossible. “In practically all cases a
defendant’s costs are going to be lower than those of the claimant because
the claimant has the burden of proving the claim and therefore all the work
of investigating the claim is front-loaded — that is, it has to take place
before the case can proceed. So because there is more to do, more time and
therefore money has to be spent getting the case together.” Another reason,
he says, is that NHS lawyers do not engage when a claim can be settled out
of court — again fuelling costs. It was the actions of the NHS and NHS
Litigation Authority that were to blame for driving up costs, not that of
solicitors trying to settle, he added.
* Forum-shopping for the best European country for a divorce may
become even more complex — with proposals just announced by the UK to
harmonise the law affecting the 170,000 couples involved in cross-border EU
divorces each year. New draft regulations would allow couples to choose the
member state where they want to divorce, if they have other defined links
with it, such as place of marriage, usual domicile, nationality or they were
last resident there. The proposal provides for both spouses to be informed
of their rights to stop the choice of forum creating a disadvantage for the
weaker member of a couple. The commission’s draft has run into opposition
from Sweden; it needs unanimous approval to become EU law. At least nine
countries (France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia
and Luxembourg) have agreed to use what is called “enhanced co-operation” on
the issue, enabling them to go ahead on their own. Frank Arndt, head of
international family work at Stowe Family Law, said: “This is a split, not a
harmonisation. Current EU law in this area is a dog’s dinner of
contradictions, absurdities and injustices. The country in which divorce
proceedings are filed is of huge significance . . . and can have a dramatic
bearing on the eventual settlement.”
