Readers may remember that I was concerned to the point of cyncism about the revelation that the Community Legal Service Direct phone line managed a referral rate to solicitors of 13%. I have now heard that the contracts for the pilot Community Legal Aid...
Kafka didn't do dialogue
But I am very impressed that Brian Barder, the ex-SIAC lay member who resigned on principle does. Mr Barder commented on my post via the trackback at his blog. I've posted a comment in response, but I'd like to post his comment and my response here, for two...
Kafka
Ah yes, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. Lest we forget, this is the tribunal which hears evidence that is so secret that the Defendant isn't allowed to know what it is, and in which there is no need for the Defendant to actually be charged with...
Liberty on the barricades
Jonathon Freedland has an eminently sensible opinion piece in the Guardian on why legal aid matters and where Carter is a disaster. The article is clear and impassioned, but also sadly true in suggesting that this is unlikely to be an issue that leads to the...
Mea Culpa, but not wholly.
Ok, so I've had to make an embarrasing addition to this post on the 5 year grace period for pay and holiday bonuses under the age discrimination regs. Pure laziness. No excuse (except I was knackered, overworked, blogging on a combination of wine and tannin...
Bob Cratchit.
Prompted by a comment by Anna and my own musings, I've been idly wondering about incremental or seniority based increases in holiday entitlement in relation to age discrimination (and pace Cadman, sex discrimination). Such schemes are fairly common, x years...
All shall have prizes
On 3rd October, the European Court released its judgement in Cadman v HSE. Few people can have missed this as, for instance, there were large articles in the Guardian and the Times. Moreover, few people can miss that these articles draw deeply divergent...
Life? What life?
I was at a conference with a client and Counsel the other day at a certain Lincoln's Inn Fields chambers. The place was heaving with lighting stands, women with clipboards and the kind of unshaven, tool belted man that can only be a rigger. Lo, they were...
"Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
The Times Law blog suggests that the incoming age discrimination legislation could result in some bizarre misinterpretations, citing the QCA's frankly strange interpretation of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 as a prior example. This could well be...
Do you wanna be in my CLAN
Some of those of us metaphorically stripped to the waist at the civil legal aid coalface will be impressed or envious at the fast work of Scott-Moncrieff Harbour & Sinclair, who have decided that it is better to pre-empt the Legal Services Commission's...
Obvious filler
I ought to be drafting a brief to Counsel that is needed tomorrow, and I will, I will, but as a distraction activity, it is time for the fall back post of every lazy blogger - a trawl through the search engine keyphrases log. Genuine search click throughs...
Art and copyright 2
Following on from this post, which suggested a strong incompatibility between contemporary art practices and copyright law in terms of the potential failure of copyright to cover some contemporary art, I'd like to take a quick look at the reverse - how...