The Law Society Gazette, 26 October 2006

Falconer ploughs on with legal aid reform

Solicitors accused the government of riding roughshod over their views this week as it pledged to plough ahead with legal aid reforms despite widespread opposition from the profession. In the government’s response to the record 2,375 replies to its consultation on Lord Carter’s reforms – mostly from solicitors – the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, made it clear that he remains committed to fixed fees and competitive tendering for criminal and civil legal aid.

27 November 1996

Strasbourg visit causes dismay

The lawyer who acted for the makers of Visions of Ecstasy – the film banned in the UK under ancient blasphemy laws – has said that a well-publicised visit to the European Court of Human Rights by the Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay ‘smacks of the executive leaning on the judiciary’.

3 December 1986

A future for the profession?

The firm for which I work is being bombarded by invitations from the large accountancy firms to the seminars they are arranging for their clients on the implementation of Pt III of the Insolvency Act 1985. If the accountants are now advising on legislation and we are not, do we have, or deserve, a future?

1 December 1976

Royal Commission on Legal Services

Following discussions between the Royal Commission and the Law Society, it was thought that it would be helpful if members of the Royal Commission were to visit offices of solicitors in various parts of the country so that they could see at first hand what solicitors did and get the ‘feel’ of a solicitor’s office.

December 1956

A solicitor in China

We saw no signs of any lynch law such as existed in the early days of the revolution. We saw no sign of any forced labour. Prison labour cannot be condemned as being in this category for prisoners are taught a trade and tend to leave prison not only able to earn their own living but with a desire to do so. English prisons, I think, might well apply more widely the principle of ‘reform through work’.

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