* Not normally known for their adventurous grooming, City lawyers will this
weekend defy their conformist leanings and show their lighter, or at least
hairier, side. Male solicitors at some of the UK's biggest firms have been
urged to grow moustaches for a month in support of Movember,
a foundation established to raise awareness of men's health issues. The
campaign by RollOnFriday, the legal community site, follows a successful
plea last year in which it secured the backing of 24 firms. Top-performing
among them was Linklaters, which alone raised over £60,000. Even Charlie
Jacobs, a star corporate partner, got in on the act. RollOnFriday
director Matthew Rhodes (above) raised £13,000 for an effort
described by one reader as a cross between Steve Guttenberg and Tom Selleck.
Feeling swarthy? Click here.
* With perfect timing, Pulitzer prize-winning author Barton Gellman is
in London this week ahead of the US presidential election. He will be giving
a talk at the London School of Economics on "The Cheney White House:
Lessons for the next US President." Gellman is also promoting his book, Angler,
The Shadow Presidency of Dick Cheney, a forensic expose of Cheney of the
Vice President, how he acquired power, reshaped the role fo the
vice-presidency and the dilemmas facing his successor. The book is of
particular interest to lawyers as it uncovers how the US constitution and
international law could be distorted to service a radically conservative
agenda; and reveals Cheney's hand in some of the most fateful decisions made
by the Bush administration: its wiretapping programme, shift in focus from
al-Queda to Iraq and reversal of energy policy. More details: Mari Yamazaki
020 7 010 3419.
* Future lawyers are to get "life coaches" to help them surmount
obstacles in entering the legal profession, Lord Bach has announced.
Under a project called "Barriers Leading into Law", students
trying to pursue a career in law can be alloted a sponsor or "lie coach"
who will act as a mentor. The Ministry of Justice project is open to
undergraduates reading law and those holding graduate diplomas in law, the
Bar Vocational Course or Legal Practice Course qualifications. Initially 32
students will be "coached" by selected MoJ staff with relevant
experience. The aim is to improve diversity in the profession.
* On the topic of mentors, a new edition of Black Letter Law is out, the
directory of black minority ethnic lawyers and judges who, the publishers
say, are role models for others wanting to enter the law. The updated 2008
edition, which was launched recently at Allen & Overy, (and has
the backing of a host of othe big commercial law firms) is edited by Debo
Nwauzu, who also founded the venture. The guide is much longer, she said,
becaue many more names have been identified for inclusion, including
partners in leading commercial law firms; heads and directors of law,
professors, general counsel and others. "Clearly ethnic minorities
continue to make an enormous contribution to the legal profession and I
wantn to showcase and celebrate this," she said. Writing the foreword, Mrs
Justice Dobbs, Britain's only non-white High Court judge, notes that the
directory has "grown significantly" and urges others to make
themselves known.
* Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is backing a drive to persuade more
employers to support their employees serving as school governors. The
campaign is one of the recommendations of a report, Governing Our Schools,
recently published by Business in the Community (BITC) and based on research
BITC commissioned with the sponsorship of Freshfields. The research found
that school governing is "overloaded" - ie governing bodies are
responsible for too much; their work is unnecessarily complex, difficult and
demanding and their work goes largely unnoticed. Barry O'Brien,
Freshfields partner and school governor, said: "This is a cause close
to the heart of Freshfields."
* How do tribunals make their decisions? Is it consistent? Is it affected by
the make-up of the panels and what different contributions do the
legally-qualified and lay members make? These and other questions are to be
examined in ground-breaking research by Professor Dame Hazel Genn and Professor
Cheryl Thomas of UCL's Faculty of Laws, with a £200,000 grant by the
Nuffield Foundation. The findings are expected in the the first half of
2010.
* Former Bar chairman Stephen Hockman, QC, has called for the United
Nationals to establish an International Court of the Environment in London.
With Client Earth (www.clientearth.org) Hockman is organising a symposium to
discuss the idea along with other climate issues at the British Library at 4
pm on November 28. Hockman says there is "an urgent need for the
establishment of a supreme legal authority for settling issues regarding
harm to the environment". The new court needs intially to be privately
backed, he says, before moving to obtain support from other countries.
* More than 120 of the world's leading equality and human rights experts have
called for a radical re-think of equal rights because of the global
financial crisis. Signatories from 44 nations are urging governments and
individuals to back a new human rights declaration, 60 years after the
epoch-making UN Declaration on Human Rights made in the wake of the second
World War. The new declaration has been launched in London by the UK-based
think tank, the Equal Rights Trust. Sir Bob Hepple, QC, a leading
human rights lawyer and one of the signatories to the declaration, said: "There
are growing inequalities within and between different nations. This was a
series issue before the current global crisis. It is now one of the most
pressing issues we face today."
* The 2009 internship scheme for the Centre for Capital Punishment Studies
will be launched at the centre's annual forum on November 19. There will be
speakers on the death penalty and former interns talking about their
experiences on the scheme which provides students or lawyers with a chance
to gain knowledge and experience of organisations involved with capital
punishment, as well as those representing death row inmates. Some 10
overseas placements are offered, not restricted to those with a law
background. Spaces at the forum are limited. To book e-mail:
L.Gyllensten1@wmin.ac.uk or check out the web site: www.wmin.ac..uk/ccps
* The Law Society has caused a big furore with plans to open its doors
to non-solicitors after 63 per cent of council members voted in favour of
creating a new "affiliate category." The final decision now rests
with a postal ballot of the society - deadline was due last Friday. The new
affiliate status would be open to six categories of indivdiual working in
legal services in the UK and overseas. They would play no role in the
governance of the society and would not be llowed to stand for council seats
or attend general meeetings. The idea, according to past society president
Kevin Martin is to increase its income. He told the council: "This is
not about letting in the barbarians at the gates. There will be safeguards.
The brand will not be watered down," he said. But there is concern in
some quarters, such as Holborn practitioners, that affiliates would
eventually want voting rights and the right to stand for council. Fraser
Whitehead, council member for Holborn, gave warning that a "huge number"
of people would become eligible. "It will not be in the hundreds of
thousands but tens of hundreds of thousands." Others have condemned the
move as a "disgrace" and "backward step." Arthur Weir, a
solicitor of the Westminster and Holborn Law Society, also argues that the
process securing approval for the move is unconconstitutional and that the
process for the ballot has defective in several ways, for instance, the
society "published" the notice on its website but in a way that
no-one would have noticed, he says - intead of sending out notices of the
meeting and resolution by post. Stand-by for further (legal?) action of the
ballot goes the "wrong" way. He says: "These are no mere
formalities. The proposals are controversial. They would remove from the
members [of the Law Society] the power to decide themselves questions about
extending membership to non-solicitors . . . " The process is "a
travesty of fair and honourable dealing," he adds. "It would be
unacceptable in an industrial trades union. To find it at the heart of a
learned professional society dedicated to law and justice is startling and
depressing."
* There's still time for barristers to sign up to this year's Bar Conference,
the profession's annual (and now only, since the Law Society conference was
abandoned) jamboree. This year's event, which takes places on Saturday 1
November at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, London (and carries professional
training points) boasts a star-studded programme which should appeal across
the board to criminal, commercial, family or international lawyers/human
rights alike. The packed timetable, with the overall theme of "Multinationalism
and multiculturalism - Tomorrow's World?") spans hate crime, human
trafficking, English and religious law, judicial appointments, the
commercial law on the international field, and equity. A highlight will be
the open forum debate, with its top speakers Mr Justice Edwin Cameron, Judge
of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa; Sir Konrad
Schiemann, Judge of the European Court of Justice and Lord Neuberger of
Abbotsbury, the law lord. To register contact: Judy Lane Consulting (JLC),
01494 433235, fax 0870 429 6874 or try the website:
www.judylaneconsulting.com
