Welcome to Nearly Legal. I'm delighted to be hosting Blawg Review for my first time and in the UK for the second time. What follows is the best of recent Law blog posts, as heavily filtered through the pre-occupations of an english, publicly-funded...
All the blog posts, most recent first
Gilby v City of Westminster
A Court of Appeal homeless case, Gilby v City of Westminster [2007] EWCA Civ 604 was handed down on 27 June, but I've been a bit slow to note it, partly because I've been busy and partly because, frankly, it is a bit of a meh of a case. Still, it...
The World turned upside down?
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,...
Submit to me…
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...
Regime Change
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...
An Act of Selfless Generosity
[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,...
Criminal behaviour
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...
YL v Birmingham City Council and others
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...
Champagne does not affect professional judgment
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...
And they didn't leave a tip
Who would have thought that restaurant reviews would turn out to be the vanguard of defamation law? Recent results from the High Court in Belfast and the High Court of New South Wales in Oz suggest a disturbing trend. In February, in Belfast, a...
Waxed Moustaches
I caught someone from the National Citizens Advice Bureau on BBC Breakfast this morning, commenting on a CAB report on the large number of people in private rented properties in bad condition who are promptly evicted if they complain or do anything...
Housing Duty – stating the obvious
For once, Birmingham was on the winning side of an entirely predictable Court of Appeal judgment on homelessness law. Omar -v- Birmingham City Council 2007. (7 June 2007. Times Report. Not yet freely available elsewhere) Birmingham had discharged...