Legal Profession

News, analysis, comment and updates from ICLR's case law and UK legislation platform

Book review: Under the Wig by William Clegg QC

This is both a case book and a memoir, by one of our leading criminal practitioners. The cases are famous ones that got massive newspaper coverage at the time, and the man described in the memoir is both a typical and in some ways not a typical criminal law defender. Review by Paul Magrath. Continue reading

A visit to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg

The European Court in Luxembourg enjoys a level of support and quality of facilities that domestic courts, with the possible exception of the UK Supreme Court, can only envy. Before issuing its multi-lingual judgments, the judges have the benefit, not only of a superb modern library, but also the intensively researched opinion of an Advocate General, the nature of whose role is perhaps not as well known as it could be. Continue reading

Virtual, Flexible, Responsive: HMCTS Reform Roadshow at RCJ

The great hall in the Royal Courts of Justice has a cathedral-like splendour by day, but on a freezing midwinter evening its dim chandeliers failed to dispel the cavernous gloom. It was here that a crowd of some 62 legal professionals gathered on the evening of Monday 11 December, to hear about the latest developments in Continue reading

Solicitor’s retainer and professional privilege after S v S

David Burrows considers practitioner issues arising in a recent case in which a husband applied for an injunction to prevent a firm of solicitors, with whom he had previously had a preliminary consultation, from acting for his wife in divorce proceedings between them, and ponders an unexplained reference to ‘skull painting’…   The ‘blasé’ evidence Continue reading

Media Litigation: a new approach

Earlier this year Mr Justice Warby was appointed to the newly created role of Judge in Charge of the Media and Communications List. We look at what this means in practice and how it will affect the future management of High Court media claims. The new list Speaking at the Annual Conference of the Media Continue reading

The Court of the Future: HMCTS Change Event at MOJ

On 2 November 2017 the Ministry of Justice hosted an HMCTS Public Community Change Event to showcase some of the work being done in the course of its current £1bn overhaul of the court system. Paul Magrath was there. [Post updated 17/11/17.] The Ministry of Justice in St James is an imposing and somewhat dystopian Continue reading