Pupil barrister Scribbler encounters a litigant-in-person in action for the first time, and he sounds like a classic of the genre, issuing against multiple defendants 'so they could come to court to explain themselves', regardless of whether they actually...
LSC Judicial Review Mk 2
The Law Society is (just about) to file the second Judicial Review application of the Civil legal aid Unified Contract, this time arguing that, following the Court of Appeal judgment in the first JR, the LSC has to address the illegality of the current fixed...
Legal aid, negligence and the clients from hell
It's not a housing case, but Leonard & Leonard v Byrt & Others [2008] EWCA Civ 20 caught my eye as being of practical interest for legal aid practioners and potential amusement for everyone else. This was an appeal against a summary judgment against...
Hope over experience
Surprising being undeterred by the experience of the first podcast I did with him, Charon QC has demonstrated a generosity of spirit, if a lack of judgement, in doing another. We talk about training contract experience, smaller firms, and the sisyphean...
More in sorrow than in anger
or rather, a good slapping. A sequel to the last post on barristers refusing to sign up for the VHCC contract. A hat tip to Charon QC for the link to the response of the Chairman of the Bar, Tim Dutton to Richard Collins' letter from the LSC accusing...
Lacking Support
Tempted though I am to get caught up in Jeremy Paxman's baggy pants revelations (and don't you just love the image of Paxman raising his best inquisitorial eyebrow as he questions the occupants of his gym and, of course, the House of Commons as to the...
Thanks Ed
As Charon has picked up, Colin Samuels and Diane Levin, law bloggers and 'sherpas' to the ever so anonymous editor of Blawg Review have asked for recognition of the editor's achievement in building and sustaining the review. As someone who has been the...
Human Rights for customers
Undertaken at the request of the DCA (as was), the MoJ has published the findings of its 'Human Rights Insight Project'. The BBC did a story on it, and the publication can be found on the MoJ site here. There are a number of things to cheer in the report,...
After wigs, cravats
And we thought the sound and fury over whether bench, bar and solicitor-advocates wear or don't wear wigs was bad. From the land of more relaxed court-wear comes a debate over whether a cravat (or an Ascot, depending) is appropriate for an advocate or rather...
Exodus Part 1 (of many)
The Guardian reports on a survey by the Association of Lawyers for Children. The results are not surprising to anyone facing a legal aid future (although the survey was done before the LSC decision to terminate the unified contract). One-third of individual...
LSC throws rattle out of pram
Good heavens. In an announcement carefully made at 5 pm on 21 December 2007, the Legal Services Commission states that intends to terminate the unified contract. Yes, that civil legal aid unified contract that we mostly signed up to in March/April 2007 and...
Not the only housing blog in the village
Oh frabjious day. After many months ploughing a lonely furrow as the internet`s finest but only housing law blog, I am delighted to welcome another into the world. William Flack of Flack & co, who both comments on and features in posts hereabouts, has...