30 June

The government has said that ‘reasonable’ legal fees will be recovered for former subpostmasters asking for more compensation after the Post Office Horizon scandal.

Business minister Paul Scully announced an interim payment of £19.5m to the 555 members of the High Court Group Litigation Order (GLO) who initially exposed the scandal.

These individuals were left with just £11m between them once legal costs were paid out of the £57.75m compensation offered by the Post Office to settle the case in 2019. But since then, other victims who were not in the order have been offered much higher sums, prompting calls for the government to look again at their payouts. In a written statement, Scully expressed his hope that the latest compensation will ‘go some way in helping many postmasters who have, and still are, facing hardships’. Crucially for the victims, who had to fund their own legal action, Scully stated that members of the GLO group will be able to claim reasonable legal fees as part of participating in the final compensation scheme.

The High Court has rejected the will of a man suffering from paranoid delusions after his solicitors failed to do adequate checks. In Boast v Ballardi & Ors Master Clark ruled that Edward Smith’s will from 2013 should effectively be replaced by one from seven years earlier after a legal challenge from Smith’s nephew.

29 June

The government voiced its wholehearted approval for a massive increase in fining powers by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Lord chancellor Dominic Raab said the limit rising from £2,000 to £25,000 will speed up the disciplinary process and allow the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to focus on only the most serious cases (see p4).

The SDT has rejected a solicitor’s unusual plea to strike him off the roll, instead imposing a £10,000 fine for misconduct. Paul Geoffrey Hayward admitted breaching SRA rules over property sales and said he no longer wanted to be on the roll as he would not be able to gain employment in the sector. Given his financial situation, Hayward said he would prefer to be struck off than fined. The tribunal declined to do so, saying that despite his request the sanction still had to reflect the level of misconduct.

Slater and Gordon denied speculation that it is in talks over a possible merger, as the national firm announced it was splitting its business into two and making changes at the top. Nils Stoesser, formerly its chief financial and operating officer, has taken over as chief executive from David Whitmore, who is taking on a non-executive role.

New legislation is urgently needed to regulate biometric technologies such as facial recognition, an independent legal review has concluded. The review, led by Matthew Ryder QC and commissioned by the Ada Lovelace Institute, called for a moratorium on biometric surveillance until the currently ‘inadequate’ laws and regulations are replaced. Biometric technologies are being used by a number of private and public organisations, including employers, schools and retailers. While these technologies promise efficiencies, they also raise legal and ethical concerns around privacy, free expression, discrimination and other impacts on human rights.

28 June

Courts and tribunals may grant remote access to in-person and hybrid hearings after temporary measures introduced at the height of the pandemic were made permanent under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. Remote access to fully in-person hearings is now permitted where it is ‘in the interests of justice’, there is the ‘capacity and technological capability’ to do so, and when providing remote access would not ‘create an unreasonable administrative burden’.

The Law Commission of England and Wales has been asked by the government to review the ‘disordered and unclear’ law on contempt of court and consider ways to improve its effectiveness, consistency and coherence. Among the possibilities is codification.

27 June

Barristers – and solicitors – flocked to picket lines outside courts in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and Cardiff as the criminal bar stepped up its direct action over legal aid funding.

The Law Society announced that it has appointed a former managing partner and chief executive of City firm Lewis Silkin as its new CEO. Ian Jeffery will take over from interim CEO Gerry Walsh in September. Jeffery joined Lewis Silkin in 1990, rising through the ranks to become a partner in 1998 and managing partner at the age of 37 in 2005. He led Lewis Silkin until 2019 and has recently been working as an independent consultant.

The Law Society has also announced that its Brussels office will close later this year, after 31 years at the heart of the city’s EU district.

24 June

The SRA has opened more than 20 cases against firms being investigated for possible wrongdoing over so-called SLAPP litigation. CEO Paul Philip told June’s board meeting that the regulator had identified a cohort of cases where it had received reports or intelligence that a firm may be involved in a ‘strategic lawsuit against public participation’.

A survey by The Next 100 Years project found that 84% of women believe pay equality will not be achieved until the next generation or beyond. Analysis of gender pay gap data by the project, which supports women in law, suggests it will take 86 years to close the mean gap and 40.6 years to close the median gap.

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