The Law Society Gazette, 2 March 2006

Women lawyers paid 21% less than men

Women lawyers are paid 21% less than men, the Women and Work Commission said this week - more than the national pay gap of 13% - prompting a call for compulsory gender pay audits for all organisations employing female solicitors.  

28 February 1996

Rights blow to UK

In the latest of a series of adverse human rights judgments, Strasbourg last week dealt Britain’s credibility in European legal circles a further body blow with its judgment on juvenile sentencing. And, predictably, it brought renewed pressure on the government to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into British law.

25 February 1976

Pornography and the law

One cannot shut one’s eyes to the fact that the present law is widely disregarded and is rapidly falling into disrepute because there is a vast public demand for pornography not only, one supposes, from sexual deviants but from ordinary individuals who are prepared to pay (it is said) up to £20 each for films and up to £6 each for magazines. Nor can one disregard the change in our society since the late 1950s. Full frontal photographs complete with pubic hair such as now decorate the most proper station bookstalls, were then unknown.

March 1966

Abolition of the dock

The Council’s Memorandum on the Use of the Dock in Criminal Courts, published last month, recommends more than a refinement of justice. Their suggestion that the dock should be replaced by a seat for the accused, immediately behind the advocate, is imaginative and practical and comprises reforms of particular benefit to solicitors.

February 1946

Military courts - defending officers

An officer who has conscientious scruples against undertaking the defence of an alleged war criminal charged before a military court should inform the convening officer who has sought his services in that capacity and ask to be excused. This was made clear by the Secretary of State for War in replying to a question by Viscountess Davidson.

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