Editors relieved as lawyers' earnings make front page

It was lawyers to the rescue for editors last week, as a slew of stories on the profession helped fill pages in an otherwise slow week.

The latest survey of partners' pay at the top City law firms unsurprisingly garnered a great deal of coverage.

'Hundred lawyers break the 1 million barrier' was how the Independent's front page covered the Commercial Lawyer magazine's survey (31 August).

The same day, Metro in London concentrated on how 'the country's top lawyers earn higher salaries than professionals working in any other area', including chief executives of FTSE 100 companies.

The Times largely ignored the money and focused on the finding that 'family life is not top lawyers' strong suit'.

It went on: 'They prefer golf to being with their families as a way of relaxing and their children rate just higher than horses in their league of interests.'

Pursuing its interest in the many lawyers in the government, the Mail on Sunday's take on the survey was that 'the profits made by high-flying lawyers have almost doubled since Labour came to power'.

The paper said the figures 'will add to thecontroversy surrounding the government's relationship with the legal profession' - a controversy regularly stoked by the Mail on Sunday, of course.

The retirement of George Carman QC received acres of generous coverage - far more than it surely would have done in a busier week - with the story making the front page of the Daily Telegraph (with a big photograph of the great man relaxing in his garden) and the Guardian (30 August).

Joshua Rozenberg, newly installed as the Telegraph's legal editor, waxed especially lyrical about the libel lawyer whose retirement 'means that the age of the great advocate is now finally at an end'.

Perhaps the papers were just pleased that they would never face him again in court.

There was also a fair degree of interesting speculation in the past week.

The Times said a logjam of legislation in the House of Lords could see the government dump the controversial Bill to curb defendants' right to jury trial (29 August).

Such a move would be a 'humiliation' for Home Secretary Jack Straw, the paper said, but it was backed in an editorial which said the 'facts in the government's case [for the Bill] remain elusive'.

With the imminent introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998, 'it would be hard for this government to justify both extending and contracting its citizens' human rights simultaneously'.

The Guardian has 'learned' that the government has no plans to implement part two of the Family Law Act 1996, which would introduce no-fault divorce (2 September).

'The government is not opposed to no-fault divorce, but has no great attachment to the Act, pushed through by the last government in the face of substantial opposition by "moral majority" peers and MPs,' it said.

Meanwhile, plans to speed up employment tribunals by allowing both sides to volunteer for private arbitration by Acas has been delayed, said The Times (30 August).

The Department of Trade and Industry has put them on hold while it looks at the implications of the Human Rights Act.

The Financial Times published a far more sober assessment of the Act's wider impact this week after weeks of growing media hysteria (2 September).

'It would be wrong to see the Act as a simple cash machine for complainants,' it said, saying much will depend on how the judges use their new powers.

'The High Court is not at the cutting edge of radicalism,' noted a spokesman for gay rights pressure group Stonewall.

The article concluded: 'Legal experts believe the Act's true legacy will be the permanent change it brings in the balance of power between the government and the courts, public authorities and the people.'

Neil Rose