All articles by Jonathan Goldsmith – Page 32
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EU-US deal stirs lawyers’ primal instincts
In his recent state of the union address, president Obama said: ‘And tonight, I’m announcing that we will launch talks on a comprehensive transatlantic trade and investment partnership with the UK, because trade that is fair and free across the Atlantic supports millions of good-paying American jobs.’ Except that he ...
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Find-A-Lawyer, EU-style
The European budget discussions which ended just over a week ago might have left you puzzled as to whether EU funds impact lawyers. Do you benefit, and if so how? Here is a little insight into how a tiny part of the cash has been used to help the legal ...
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Lawyers and the new money laundering directive
Well, at least one of my predictions from last week for 2013 has come true: the draft of the fourth money laundering directive was published a few days ago, as reported by the Gazette last
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States’ rights or EU rights in 2013?
I have been reading Robert A. Caro’s masterpiece on the life of US president Lyndon Johnson, which I cannot recommend enough. It is not short (four gigantic volumes so far), but is compulsive and brilliant. The relevance of this to EU legal affairs is in its exposure of how the ...
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Rational debate needed over EU crime laws
So the big Cameron speech on Europe has come and gone. He devoted precisely 12 words in it to the most pressing EU issue which will arise before his beloved referendum even takes place: that of the opportunity for opt-out by the UK government from the EU crime and policing ...
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Lobbying by lawyers – a prickly path
I often avoid writing about sensitive topics, out of cowardice. One of these has been the hyper-sensitive subject of governmental lobbying by lawyers, which is of interest both in the UK and in the EU.
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Pull up your socks, Johnny Foreigner
One of the main themes of David Cameron’s recent speech seemed to be deep regret that the EU was just not good enough for the UK. If only it were, he would be delighted to recommend staying. And so he gave poor Johnny Foreigner an ultimatum to pull up his ...
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All eyes on the Irish
Another six months has elapsed, and so another presidency of the EU Council of Ministers begins. For the next half-year, the Irish government is in charge, the seventh time that they have led in the past 40 years. The budget for their presidency is, not surprisingly, less than when they ...
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Horse-riding lessons for lawyers
In the last few weeks, two things have happened simultaneously. First, the government has said that it wishes to continue with the statutory underpinning of rather close supervision of the legal profession. Second, the government has said that it does not wish to begin the statutory underpinning of close – ...
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An alternative honours list
From a European and a lawyer’s point of view, there were some surprises when reading the latest new year’s honours list. I have therefore decided to suggest alternative nominees.
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Strasbourg Christmas surprises
Here is the first pantomime of the season. The scene opens in Strasbourg, where giants live: the European Court of Human Rights, and the Council of Europe, among others. Baron Hard-Up (otherwise known as the French government) owns their forest habitat, and has made it as difficult as possible to ...
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A professional lesson from Belarus
There is a country in Europe, bordered by three member states of the EU (Latvia, Lithuania and Poland), where lawyers suffer grievously for carrying out their professional duties - Belarus, often called Europe’s last dictatorship.
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Lawyers’ core principles are under threat
It has been fashionable to speak about the future of lawyers in terms of commoditisation, standardisation and technology (yes, I am speaking about you, Richard Susskind). Those factors will clearly have their impact – even though to date, far from there being fewer lawyers as predicted, there are more and ...
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An economic message for our regulators
Here are some statistics which may surprise you (apart from the first sentence): Based on 2010 estimates, the UK had the largest share of the European legal services market followed closely by Germany. In total the UK and German legal services markets accounted for just under ...
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Becoming excited about data protection
I was on a conference panel recently with an Irish solicitor who gushed enthusiasm for data protection, and made it sound… well, interesting. I carefully watched him perform his schtick, and I’m now ready to sing and dance for you on the same subject.
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Plea for unification of international legal bodies
I spent some days last week in Dresden at the annual conference of the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA), which - with the International Bar Association (IBA) - is one of the two organisations serving lawyers worldwide. What I want to know is: why must there be two?
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Information demands lay siege to confidentiality
Futurologists of the legal profession concentrate chiefly on the impact of technology and alternative structures when predicting what will happen next. There is an assumption that the activities of lawyers will continue as before, but delivered in a new way. However, I want to describe another trend which is beginning ...
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Quotas for women: for or against?
For Twitter followers of the EU justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, it will be clear what has been on her mind recently. From 5 October until the middle of last week, she had tweeted 17 times. Apart from when she was distracted by the award of the Nobel peace prize to ...
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Do we need a European Public Prosecutor?
It would be cowardly not to begin this week with comments on the reports that the UK government will opt out of the EU’s criminal justice measures. I stress at the outset that the views I give on this subject are mine, and not those of the organisation for which ...
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A compendium of legal news
It never rains but it pours. I go away for a week to the IBA conference in Dublin, and find on my return many developments of interest for solicitors.