All articles by Jonathan Goldsmith – Page 41
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The European Courts – and a certain treaty
Oh, and the Lisbon Treaty… I want to write about the European Courts, but I can’t let a week like the past one go by without comment. We rarely have so much excitement in Brussels. Tony Blair apparently out of the running for the role of new EU President!
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Notaries in revolt
I had business with a notary this week. Visiting a notary in Belgium – I suspect the same holds true in all of the continental countries in which they practise – is like entering a scene from a 19th-century French novel. Typically, you are ushered into a specially furnished room, ...
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Is the EU speaking the right language?
Multilingualism is close to the heart of the EU project, but is not something we do well in the UK. Working in an organisation with two official languages, English and French, I have begun to speak a different kind of English. For instance, we use the word ‘deontology’ to mean ...
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Oops, another EU lawyer training proposal
This is how policy comes about.I was scanning what I assumed was an innocuous resolution from the European Parliament on the future five-year programme for justice and home affairs (the so-called Stockholm Programme).
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Will there be a global code of conduct?
I have just returned from the annual conference of the International Bar Association (IBA) in Madrid – the largest ever, with more than 5,000 lawyers from around the world. It wasn’t the best-designed conference to attend...
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A riposte to Professor Richard Susskind
I attended last week a meeting in Dublin of the chief executives of bars and law societies from around the world – well, from Europe, and common law jurisdictions beyond Europe (Africa, North America and the Asia Pacific region).
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Immigration: what can lawyers do?
There has been a twist to my report last week that the incoming president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, has undertaken to separate justice and security issues at European level by creating a commissioner for justice and fundamental rights alone.
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Lawyers, the rule of law and trust
On a happy introductory note, I can record that lawyers gained a major victory this week at European level. Before submitting himself to a vote in the European Parliament to support his candidacy to be renominated as president of the European Commission (a vote he won), José Manuel Barroso conceded ...
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The right to choose your own lawyer
The European Court of Justice this week decided a case relating to the free choice of lawyers (Case C-199/08, Eschig). The Court overrode a condition in an insurance policy and decided that a European directive granting free choice of lawyers had to be respected regardless of the insurance condition.
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New EU term begins – what’s on the agenda
The summer break is over. Newly elected MEPs are beginning to meet, and the policy machine is grinding into action once again. So, what is on the agenda generally, and for lawyers in particular?
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Finding a lawyer in Lapland or Lampedusa
The business of finding a lawyer in another EU country, and hopefully a competent one with experience in the field you want, has recently come to the top of the agenda.
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Employed lawyers: another European case
Another day, another case before the European Court of Justice on the practice of law. This one is interesting because it concerns rules that prohibit lawyers who are employed in other functions from being members of the bar.
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Money laundering: a review in Europe at last
The European Commission has finally announced its plans for a full review of the impact of the anti-money laundering legislation on the legal profession.
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Belgium in the summertime is the perfect holiday spot (for lawyers, too)
You may think that Belgium is no more than a short and tedious motorway journey to somewhere more interesting. You are wrong.
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Fancy a little law qualification forum shopping?
I am at the American Bar Association (ABA) annual meeting in Chicago. Numbers attending are seriously down, and the ABA faces the same kind of financial squeeze as bars all over the world.
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Regulation and free markets
In Europe, hardly a day goes by without news of further regulation of the financial services sector in the wake of the economic crisis.
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Compensation Fund – can we learn from France?
In a week in which a painful rise in contributions to the Compensation Fund is expected, what better than seeing how another jurisdiction handles clients’ money? Us, learn something from the French? OK, don’t throw your tomatoes yet.
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Stockholm on my mind
The Queen has been reigning since before I was born (I know it doesn’t look like that from my photo), but here in Brussels we chant ‘the president is dead! Long live the president!’ every six months. We have just seen the end of the unmourned Czech presidency of the ...
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Are lawyers more like opticians or pharmacists?
We have read that Chris Kenny, chief executive of the Legal Services Board, thinks that the £20m it will take to set up the LSB is not a ‘real issue’ – presumably just small change. Well, I hope that he keeps a penny or two out of it to pay ...
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Why are common law lawyers the hardest hit?
We read every week in the legal press about solicitors suffering in the current crisis: lay-offs, short-time and pay-cuts. There have been stories about trainees receiving the bad news by voicemail, and a US lawyer laying off his own wife.