The referendum result will have significant impacts on the education and day-to-day work of paralegals and lawyers. Economic repercussions will affect small and large legal businesses, and internationally focused law firms in London and elsewhere will be adapting to a new normal.
At the same time as these impacts play out, we are witnessing significant changes and pressures on our justice and education systems. While we anticipate proposed changes to the courts, personal injury laws, regulation and apprenticeship funding may not be directly affected by the result, we will be monitoring the situation closely, and CILEx will be here to support our members in the months and years to come.
The Competition and Markets Authority is seeking views on its interim findings, and must publish its final report by 12 January 2017. Comments should be made in writing by 19 August 2016.
Legal Services: removing barriers to competition. Consultation on proposals to make amendments to the Legal Services Act 2007 sets out the government’s proposals to ‘amend the regulatory framework for legal services to reduce barriers to the licensing of, and regulatory burdens on, legal service businesses that are licensed as alternative business structures’ . The closing date for responses is 3 August 2016.
This Practice Direction provides for a pilot scheme for a revised approach to applications for, and the court’s consideration on its own initiative of, orders requiring a report under Mental Capacity Act s49. The pilot scheme is to operate from 1 September 2016 to 31 August 2017; and apply in every case in which, on or after 1 September 2016: an application is made for an order requiring a section 49 report; or the court considers on its own initiative whether to make such an order.
Liz Truss has been appointed as the new Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice by Theresa May, the prime minister. She is the first woman to hold the post.
Previously, Liz Truss was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (from July 2014 to July 2016), and parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department for Education (from September 2012 to July 2014).
The legal teams that acted for families of the 96 Hillsborough victims won the outstanding achievement award at this year’s Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards (LALYs). The winners were announced by Baroness Doreen Lawrence at a ceremony in central London last month.
CILEx sponsored the criminal defence award, which was won by Simon Natas. The other shortlisted lawyers in the criminal defence category were Zoe Gascoyne of Quinn Melville Solicitors and Edward Caute of FMW Law.
Accepting his award, Simon said: ‘It was the only time in my legal career that I actually saw history being made in the courtroom. It was a truly extraordinary experience. I don’t want to give the court of appeal a nervous breakdown, but there could be a very large number of people who will be able to argue their convictions are unsafe. JENGbA [Joint Enterprise Not Guilty By Association] are some 700 prisoners, and every case is going to turn on its individual facts, but there could be a very large number.’
See below for the list of this year’s LALY award winners:
Details of the latest apprenticeship programmes have just been published by CILEx Law School (CLS).
Carillion Advice Services (CAS), which is part of Carillion plc, one of the UK’s leading integrated support services companies, is launching a legal apprenticeship programme, with the recruitment of four paralegal apprentices into its Newcastle office . The apprentices, who are due to start in September 2016, will support the delivery of CAS’s managed legal services offering.
Meanwhile, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is recruiting two legal apprentices to also start in September 2016. The apprentices, who will be based at the charity’s Poole headquarters, will follow the paralegal apprenticeship programme. The RNLI’s legal team handles, among other things, property, contract, human resources and probate matters, so the apprentices will gain excellent and varied experience.
Finally, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is expanding its apprenticeship programme in September 2016, hiring 19 new legal apprentices in HMRC Solicitors Oÿce and Legal Services (SOLS). SOLS provides legal services to the whole of HMRC. The apprentices will follow either the intermediate apprenticeship in legal administration or CILEx Level 3 advanced apprenticeship in legal services programmes. They will be based in HMRC’s Manchester, Nottingham, Leeds, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham and London oÿces , with a cohort of nine based in London. CLS is HMRC’s training provider for legal apprenticeships.
The government has published its Post-16 skills plan along with the report of Lord Sainsbury’s independent panel on technical and professional education. The plan will establish 15 streamlined routes for learners to choose from, including a ‘legal, finance and accounting’ route.
Vicky Purtill, CILEx’s director of education, said: ‘This is a bold and exciting move towards rationalising the provision of technical education, and I’d like to thank the panel for their diligence and openness to contributions. For more than 50 years, CILEx has been the leader in qualifying specialist legal professionals through vocational education, which we are expanding with the imminent launch of Trailblazer Apprenticeships, and our new Tech level diploma in law and legal skills.
As these proposals are implemented, our focus will be on ensuring employers remain confident in the competence and capability of CILEx-qualified staff, and that learners have accessible opportunities to pursue meaningful and fulfilling legal careers.’
The Bar Council, CILEx and the Law Society have set up a Joint Working Group to examine the viability of a contingent legal aid fund (CLAF) and make recommendations by the end of the year (see also page 36 of this issue).
The group will make recommendations as to what changes would be needed to make a CLAF viable, including changes to other forms of funding and any legislative changes and any changes to the Civil Procedure Rules. The group will investigate how a CLAF could be established (including its initial funding); how it would operate; and the outcomes it would deliver for consumers, lawyers and the wider justice system.
Martin Callan, President of CILEx, said: ‘CILEx is keen to support all routes that enable access to justice and is ready to play its part in the joint project to test the feasibility of a CLAF. The concept has been discussed regularly over many years and models do operate successfully in other jurisdictions. As funding for civil litigation has changed, particularly following the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, the renewed interest of the government and Judiciary is welcome. There is real opportunity to investigate if a CLAF could work in practice in England and Wales, and to identify the scope of its potential application, in the public interest.’