Features

Sean Jones QC and Professor Dominic Regan give Counsel a tour of the wine around this Christmas  

There is an enormous range of bottles out there this year. Here are some that we think you will be glad to have bought. 

End of term report. As 2013 draws to a close, Toby Craig reviews the past 12 months in Westminster.  

As the finishing touches are applied to the 2013 review shows and we reflect on another passing year, it’s natural to turn our minds to what the past 12 months will be remembered for. There was no Olympics, no glorious summer of sport (though Andy Murray did  win Wimbledon, which probably makes up for all of that and more) and no seismic political changes at the ballot box. The third full year of the Coalition Government, perhaps like that difficult second album, has been one of consolidation, strained relations and a relentless and determined push towards the finish line. 

In the first of a series of articles from the Bar Council IT Panel, Jonathan Polnay addresses the issue of mobile devices and how they can be kept secure . 

Smartphones and tablets are no longer new technology. Solicitors and clients demand instant responses to e-mails. We think nothing of viewing drafts of documents on the go and suggesting amendments by return. This added productivity comes with added risks – significant security risks. 

Seeing and Believing? Professor Penny Cooper on observing witness and defendant demeanour  

On September 16 2013 HHJ Peter Murphy gave a ruling in R v D (R)  in relation to the wearing of a niqaab by the defendant during proceedings in the Crown Court. This first instance decision was widely reported in the media and generated discussion about religious freedom (though the judge found that the wearing of the niqaab was not a religious requirement) and to a lesser extent discussion about observing witness and defendant demeanour. 

After life on the circuit and (not far) beyond, la dolce vita beckons  

October 11, 2013: “All things atrocious and shameless flock from all parts to Rome” – Tacitus  

A London criminal barrister’s life has a pattern: a case at Snaresbrook, a plea at Inner London, a trek out to Harrow, something juicy at the Bailey, the joys of Woolwich. True, some buildings look increasingly ropey, the facilities in the Bar Mess diminish on an almost hourly basis, the coffee comes in larger cups at higher prices; but our interest does not come from these sybaritic niceties as much as the infinite variety of people that we meet. 

A Government consultation led to proposals to downgrade the status of Lewisham Hospital. The people of Lewisham took action and set up an Independent Panel of Inquiry. Michael Mansfield QC and Elizabeth Woodcraft explain the role that barristers played.  

In 1945 a remarkable vision was forged. People wanted a fresh start and a continued role in shaping their future. This deeply felt belief was in no way daunted by the paucity of resources nor the exhaustion of war. Intrinsic to this revitalised democracy was a foundation built on universal healthcare, education and access to legal welfare. 

Drinking in the Last Chance Saloon; Toby Craig asks if press regulation is now an inevitability.  

Party conferences and a bit of feng shui in the form of a pretty unexciting reshuffle grabbed some of the headlines in recent weeks. Shailesh Vara replaces Helen Grant as Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, as she moves to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. A former solicitor, Vara’s brief will include legal aid and regulation. In the long run though, it’s just yesterday’s fish and chip paper (a position to which WW continues to aspire). But there is one story which simply refuses to go away and which continues to catch WW’s eye. That is the vexed question of who gets to say what can be written on tomorrow’s fish and chip paper? 

Susan Blake, Julie Browne and Stuart Sime
ISBN: 978-0-19-967646-0 
25 April 2013
Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Price: £34.99
Also available as an eBook  

The importance of this handbook to the integration of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) within our civil justice system cannot be overstated. Similar ADR texts have been published in the past (most notably A Practical Approach to ADR (OUP)) by the same authors, on which elements of the current handbook are clearly based. However, no other ADR text has received such high profile endorsement - by Lord Justice Jackson, the Judicial College, the Civil Justice Council and the Civil Mediation Council.  

With the assistance of an eminent Editorial Advisory Board comprising predominately judges and barristers and some practising mediators, the handbook is intended to inform litigants, lawyers and judges alike about the benefits of ADR in the hope that it will become more readily deployed in the context of civil litigation. Given the broad target audience, the book assumes little knowledge, and contains both broad overview chapters with useful ancillary information (for example on Part 36 and DBAs), as well as specialist chapters (for example on the roles and responsibilities of lawyers and parties to ADR (chapter 4), and ethics for lawyers (chapter 6)). 

Job title
Head of Chambers, Mansfield Chambers 

Mansfield Chambers is a new chambers whose publicly funded practitioners defend the civil and human rights of individuals and groups of people 

What have been some of the highlights of your career?
The cases that have had national interest and importance, primarily those that have taken on the system and brought about seismic change. One example is the Stephen Lawrence case. The Macpherson Report made 77 recommendations for change in the Met. These changes were far reaching. And what Mrs Lawrence, now Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, has done is to show that ordinary individuals could ask all the right questions, and get a lot of them answered. She also periodically summoned the political leaders and police to meetings to ask them what they had done – in effect to hold them to account. 

The Blair Government dismantled our legal system overnight. The present Government has installed a politician as Lord Chancellor. Sir Stephen Sedley examines the consequences and warns of government’s growing practice of kite-flying.  

Writers on the British constitution have always faced the problem that, contrary to what Mr Podsnap thought, it cannot simply be held up to the light and admired. The constitution is simultaneously a description of how, for the moment, we are governed and a prescriptive account of how we ought to be governed. In both respects (the former much more than the latter) it undergoes constant change; and there are concerns, highlighted by the radical changes currently being made to the legal aid system, that the process may be accelerating into a critical and damaging phase.