Law Society Gazette 31 October 2016

Criminal damage

Is the International Criminal Court crumbling before our eyes? That is the question as The Gambia followed Burundi and South Africa in withdrawing from the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty. The ICC’s chief vulnerability lies in its track record; it has so little to show when set beside the scale of its ambition. 

26 October 2006

Boost for solicitor High Court bench

The Judicial Appointments Commission is to launch a streamlined process for the appointment of High Court judges this month, with procedures that should benefit solicitors aspiring to the bench. The current 29-page application form will be reduced to nine pages, with applicants judged on five key qualities and 14 supporting abilities. 

23 October 1996

Monopoly under fire

The Law Society is to press the lord chancellor to abolish the traditional scrivener notaries’ monopoly in London. At present, 29 scrivener notaries have monopoly rights within the City of London and a circuit of three miles around the City. 

29 October 1986

Lawyers’ invisibility

A paper published by the British Invisible Exports Council concludes that the legal profession is making an increasingly valuable contribution to Britain’s balance of payments. In 1985 the estimated earnings of the profession are said to have totalled £88m, up from £19m in 1975. The main reason for the increase is the advent of the eurobond market. 

27 October 1976 

Fusion

There are many aspects of the legal profession at which Sir Henry Benson and his Royal Commission could profitably look. It is suggested that the separation of its two branches is not among them. The bar exists, and remains in work, because it is satisfying a public demand, the demand for specialists in advocacy and in certain legal fields. To scrap the bar is not to make such demand go away.  

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