The new Justice Secretary – does it matter that she’s not a lawyer?

So, as anticipated, our new Prime Minister has favoured punishing disloyalty over rewarding competence and sent Mr Gove and his ambitious, compassionate prison reforms to the naughty back benches. This morning has brought a transfer-deadline-day-style frenzy to Legal Twitter, anticipation and trepidation converging as rumours and supposition threw up name after name as possible new Secretary…

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Official: If you are accused of a crime, the government will pay more for someone to photocopy your case than for someone to defend you

This is not a complaint about what criminal barristers get paid. Honestly. There are plenty of such grizzlings on other posts over these pages. But this is not one of them. No siree. Well not really. Admittedly pay rates are a feature of this contemplation, but only as an adjunct to a broader, more depressing principle. And it…

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Michael and the Mystery of the Disappearing Prosecution Service

And now, the latest instalment in a new children’s series provisionally entitled “Michael Meets The Justice System”, possibly published by Penguin (and now, happily, no longer barred to prisoners), in which the reader joins brand new Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove on a rollercoaster of head-scratching and belly laughs as…

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What I go to court for

I am not a habitually angry person. Those who know me professionally would, I hope, attest to my happy-go-lucky demeanour and brimming joie de vivre. By way of example, I considered illustrating this blogpost with a jovial (and nostalgic) nod to Busted’s What I Go To School For. In fact: See? Jocular. Convivial. That’s me…

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