Monthly Archive for June, 2007

The World turned upside down?

By NL on 28/06/2007. 0 Comments

Or just shiggled about a bit?

From Lord Falconer and Goldsmith to Jack Straw and Baroness Scotland? Blimey.

I suspect that Baroness Scotland shouldn’t get too comfy. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Attorney General role was split shortly, with an independent chief prosecutor role and a government legal advisor role. After all, Brown has made a first stab at getting rid of the appearance of impropriety by relieving civil servants of having to obey the Prime Minister’s special advisors. But it will be interesting to see how the Baroness does, having had a fairly quiet spell as Minister for the Criminal Justice System and Law Reform … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: .

Submit to me…

By NL on 28/06/2007. 0 Comments

Nearly Legal is hosting Blawg Review #115, due out this coming Monday 2 July. The Blawg Review is a weekly travelling round up of the best of the recent blawg posts (or whatever has caught the eye of the host).

Anybody who would like to recommed a blawg post, of their own or by someone else, is more than welcome to do so. It would certainly make my job easier and possibly more crazed with power.

Guidelines and the submission form are at

http://blawgreview.blogspot.com/2005/03/submission-guidelines.html 

The Editor of Blawg Review asks that submissions are made via this page, rather than direct to me, so that if Nearly Legal goes under a … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: .

Regime Change

By NL on 27/06/2007. 0 Comments

So farewell then, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.

Some achievements of this last government are not to be dismissed. For example: the Human Rights Act; the minimum wage; civil partnerships; the beginning of the SureStart programme; even tax credits (botched execution but with a real effect). But these are the achievements of a government (and one can imagine some of them continuing).

Likewise, the downsides: the erosion of civil liberties; ludicrous managerialism; tabloid-aimed criminal justice policies; massive extension of the earnings gap; demolition of legal aid; etc. etc.. These are the doings of a government (and many will probably continue).

It is possible to imagine these policies being carried through, or … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: .

An Act of Selfless Generosity

By NL on 25/06/2007. 0 Comments

[To any non-UK readers arriving from Blawg Review, this is the latest element in the long saga of proposed reforms to legal aid funding in England. The Legal Services Commission funds legal advice and representation in some areas for the poor, undertaken by franchised private firms.]

I think the MoJ/DCA/LSC has ground me down. I’m too tired of the entire farrago to raise any righteous outrage. So it was only with a supreme effort of will that I forced myself to read the MoJ/DCA response to the report of the Consitutational Affairs Select Committe(PDF) on reforms to Legal Aid. In an act of astonishing generosity, I’ve read it, so … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: .

Criminal behaviour

By NL on 24/06/2007. 0 Comments

These are tough times for Criminal practices. There are anecdotal reports of floods of practioners trying to get jobs with the CPS, getting out of the profession, or even (shudder) trying to switch to conveyancing (just in time for Tesco Law to wipe out that sector).

As if the LSC hadn’t dreamt up enough problems for these unfortunates, it has taken to fannying about with the duty solicitor rota scheme. A new scheme, allegedly based on historical volumes of work, was to be implemented about now. Some firms faced significant cuts and acted accordingly.

Now the LSC has withdrawn the scheme, until October at least, because the data on which … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

YL v Birmingham City Council and others

By NL on 20/06/2007. 0 Comments

I haven’t had a chance to look at the judgment in full (YL (by her litigation friend the Official Solicitor) (FC) (Appellant) v. Birmingham City Council and others [2007] UKHL 27), but the House of Lords has today decided 3 to 2 (Lord Bingham and Lady Hale dissenting), that a private care home place obtained and funded by a Local Authority pursuant to the National Assistance Act does not fall under the Human Rights Act, as the care Home is not carrying out a public function.

This will bear a close look as it might well have wider ramifications on private bodies carrying out public functions. Possibly more … Read the full post

Posted in Community care and Housing law - All. Tags: , , , , .

Champagne does not affect professional judgment

By NL on 19/06/2007. 0 Comments

Or so says David Pannick QC.

Somewhere back in the mists of time, I suggested that Chambers hosting schmoozing parties didn’t have much effect on solicitors’ choice of barrister, at least in my experience.

David Pannick’s response to a rather sniffy Bar Standards Board consultation paper on the perceived propriety of chambers getting solicitors squiffy for free begs to differ at the same time as agreeing with me. The article is truly hilarious, if not perhaps wholly deliberately so.

Beginning, naturally, with a classical quote (in translation, alas), and followed by a reference to H. L. Mencken, this being written for a newspaper after all, we move right … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , , .
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