A junior solicitor has been handed a six-month suspension after a small cannabis farm was found in her home.
Michelle Davis escaped being struck off by a disciplinary tribunal after the panel accepted that the drugs weren’t hers.
Davis, 37 this year, qualified as a solicitor in 2012. At the time of the drug bust she worked for Adnan Hanif Solicitors in Nelson, Lancashire.
But her career took a turn in 2017, when police discovered a “well set up, but modest in scale, cannabis farm” in a bedroom at Davis’s address. The crop was worth between £11,000 and £16,000.
Davis, however, insisted that the dope belonged to her husband. She had “played no part in the setting up, cultivating, producing or growing of the cannabis”, which was not intended for resale.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) agreed, dropping most of the charges in exchange for David pleading guilty to permitting the production of drugs on her premises.
At Preston Crown Court, Judge Parry sentenced Davis to a community order rather than prison, but commented that “as a result of this conviction no doubt you will be [struck off]”.
Davis told the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) that she fully accepted her wrong-doing and had “let people down including myself”.
Meting out a six-month suspension, the tribunal noted that Davis was not a “complete novice as a solicitor”, but had ‘fessed up to the conviction and hadn’t been dishonest. There were, the panel said, plenty of mitigating factors in the “one-off episode” for which Davis was genuinely remorseful. It also noted that no clients were harmed in the episode.
Andrew Chadwick, dean of BPP University Law School
It has been almost two years since the solicitors’ regulator confirmed plans to scrap the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) in favour of a new centralised assessment. With another two years to go before the first sitting of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), how is one of the largest providers of legal education in the country preparing for the changes ahead?
Speaking to Legal Cheek, ahead of BPP University Law School’s headline appearance at next month’s Future of Legal Education and Training Conference, Andrew Chadwick, dean, says preparations for the new regime are well and truly underway.
The first signal came last May when BPP suspended its undergraduate offering. At the time, Chadwick stated the move was “to focus on designing programmes for the future” — a sentiment echoed by law schools up and down the country as they look to adjust their curriculum and course design to prepare for the biggest shake-up to legal education and training in a quarter-century.
So what’s the latest with BPP? The law school has introduced a senior leadership team to review its full course offering in response to the SQE, explains Chadwick. He continues:
“We are developing programmes for future solicitors: all will include an element of SQE preparation to ensure students are prepared to pass the regulatory assessments and also to ensure that they are fit for legal practice. The market will evolve and will have different needs; we will be catering for all parts of the market.”
The SQE is likely to increase the level of competition among providers. Currently, LPC providers set the assessments and award the qualification which requires substantial resources and infrastructure. But the SQE will be centrally assessed, with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) last year selecting education giant Kaplan, which closed down its UK law school operations in 2016, to handle exams and marking in an eight-year long deal. This takes away a considerable barrier to entry to the market for new law schools who may lack the resources to run assessment processes. But does Chadwick welcome this development? He told us:
“A change in regulation, in particular, a reduction in regulation around the SQE will open up the market. Open markets are good for consumers. We are happy to compete in an open market because we have absolute confidence in the quality of our offering.”
Although the curriculum of the SQE will be narrower than that covered by the LPC, the change of regulation has led to a broadening of the debate about what the training of the next generation of lawyers will look like. One key facet of that debate is the role of technology in that training. Given that programmes of education will not be SRA-regulated at all; there will be far greater scope to embed technology into new graduate programmes.
BPP is well-placed to do this. The law school launched a legal tech innovation and design module last September to plug the notable tech-shaped skills-gap on the LPC. It’s set to be a trend that continues, says Chadwick, and the course paves the way for similar future developments. He continues:
“To be conversant with technology is a key skill all future lawyers need and we are looking at how we can embed technology fully into our programmes rather than technology being viewed as a separate module,” says Chadwick, a former litigation solicitor. “We hope to combine teaching with the technology relevant to modern practice and clients to produce a solicitor fit for the 21st century.”
But the SQE is a series of exams; it’s not a course. There is no requirement for students to complete a prep course before they sit the exams which means students could, in theory, teach themselves. On this, Chadwick says:
“The centralised set of assessments will be run in a very specific fashion testing very specific knowledge and application of that knowledge. The SRA is determined that it will be rigorous and I think it is inconceivable to do the tests without having undertaken a full programme of study.”
BPP’s aim then is not just to prepare students to pass the SQE, but to prepare them for future practice. “The responses to the various SQE-related consultations show us that the assessment isn’t really what law firms need from their qualifying work experience (QWE) students. I think many students will need training in much more than the SQE qualification to convince a law firm they can fulfil the role of a solicitor. This training will provide different knowledge and deeper skills than those which will be covered by the SQE. They will need to have practised doing the tasks a trainee solicitor will do in a simulated environment,” Chadwick explains.
For students who may be worried about the lingering uncertainty the final form the SQE will take, Chadwick advises studying the transitional arrangements once the legal watchdog, the Legal Services Board (LSB), gives final sign-off to the new regime. This way the student can work out what the options are: the timing of the last opportunity to take the LPC or the first to take the new SQE.
The testing phase for the new two-part assessment is in full swing. The pilot for SQE1 took place last month, while SQE2 will be piloted towards the end of this year. It’s against this backdrop that Legal Cheek’s Future of Legal Education and Training Conference 2019 takes place. An interactive audience discussion on the practical effects of the SQE featuring SRA education and training chief Julie Brannan, the brains behind the impending solicitor super-exam, will take centre stage at Kings Place, London.
Chadwick, who was in attendance at last year’s Conference, is looking forward to this years. “I enjoyed last year’s programme. I thought it was good to keep the discussion moving. I am very much looking forward to this year’s programme and we are delighted to be partnering with Legal Cheek for the second year.”
BPP University Law School will be exhibiting during the Future of Legal Education and Training Conference on Wednesday 22 May at Kings Place London. General release tickets are available to purchase.
Victor Kruchinkin described former flame as a ‘gobby ethnic from Zone 8’ after she ended relationship
A junior solicitor has been handed a community order after he sent a string of abusive messages to a woman he met online, including one in which he claimed he only had sex with her to punish her for “being fat and for having saggy t*ts”.
Victor Kruchinkin, who at the time was a lawyer at Adams & Remers Solicitors in Pall Mall, London, described Christiana Amao a “gobby ethnic from Zone 8” via Facebook after she called time on their brief relationship, CourtNewsUK reports.
Southwark Crown Court heard how they met through the dating app Bumble in December of last year and met on two occasions before Amao ended things.
According to the report, 32-year-old Kruchinkin then sent a number of messages to Amao, including one in which he said she was “lucky to still be alive” and another where he described himself as a “psycho”. In a further message, he reportedly wrote: “I f**ked you as punishment for wasting my time, for being fat and for having saggy t*ts, for having a loose p***y and for being overweight.”
Property law specialist Kruchinkin, who was admitted to the roll in January 2018, is said to have told Amao he’d created a false Facebook account to seduce her and she would never be able to trace him, the report adds.
Kruchinkin was arrested at work in January after Amao reported the messages to the police.
In a statement read to the court, Amao said: “I was unable to leave my house for the first few days for fear he was around the corner. I was extremely worried he would try and take my life. I believe that the crime was motivated by race because he used the N-word.”
The lawyer admitted a charge of persistently making use of the public communications network to cause annoyance or anxiety.
The report reveals Kruchinkin was originally sentenced to six weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, along with 100 hours unpaid work and 25 days of rehabilitation activity. This, however, was later reduced on appeal to a 12-month community order, 100 hours of unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation activity. A restraining order that previously barred Kruchinkin from contacting Amao was also lifted.
Kruchinkin’s barrister, Tahir Ali, told the court: “He [Kruchinkin] did make a veiled threat. He met her on a dating website and he shared a night of intimacy with her. In relation to whether this offence was racially aggravated, it is my submission that it was not.”
Ali explained that Kruchinkin was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome which meant “he has a propensity to speak his mind without thinking through the consequences”, adding: “That may explain why Mr Kruchinkin wasn’t able to hold himself back — quite strange for a solicitor who worked for a commercial firm in the City.”
A spokesperson for the Solicitors Regulation Authority told Legal Cheek: “We are investigating before deciding on appropriate action.”
For a weekly round-up of news, plus jobs and latest event info
Christmas grotto elf, haunted house scarer, life drawing model and even a bouncer!
The path to legal practice isn’t always smooth sailing, with some lawyers pursuing very unconventional routes before eventually finding their way into the profession.
Legal Twitter has exploded with tales of lawyers’ unique paths into law. Using the hashtag #5JobsIHad, solicitors and barristers last night revealed the five jobs they held prior to their current post, and Legal Cheek has rounded up some of the best.
It wasn’t all paralegals and legal assistants as you might think. Rachel Law, criminal barrister at Goldsmiths Chambers, is a case in point. Proving that varied life experience is just as important as having stellar academic credentials to bag a career in law, Law revealed she held posts as a “medieval wench”, “Christmas grotto elf” and “haunted house scarer” before finding her place at the bar.
Interesting threads showing law (and other) students that varied life experience is just as important as good grades.
Five jobs I've had on my way to the bar:
1. Mobile phone sales 2. Mediaeval Wench 3. Christmas Grotto elf 4. Haunted House scarer 5. Mental Health paralegal https://t.co/LKHrXrZr9o
This was something fellow barrister Emmanuel Goldstein knows too well. “It’s vitally important, imho [in my humble opinion], for people entering the practice of law to have practical, real world experience outside of it,” he tweeted, before revealing his experience extends to “bouncer”, “book store clerk” and even “maître d’”!
It’s vitally important, imho, for people entering the practice of law to have practical, real world experience outside of it.
Also sharing their top five unique career journeys were Dan Herman, partner and Leeds office head of litigation outfit Stewarts, and Ceri-Ann Taylor, solicitor at specialist medical negligence firm Enable Law.
5 jobs I’ve had:
1. Deli counter assistant at Gateway 2. Trolley boy at Safeway 3. Barman in a jazz club 4. Crew member at McDonald’s 5. Paralegal/Trainee Solicitor/Solicitor/Partner
1. Washing up in local restaurant (for £2 per hour!) 2. Care assistant in nursing home 3. Bar worker 4. Carer for disabled in the community. 5. Trainee/solicitor
Laywers LegallyShort and CrimeGirl, who both tweet under an alias, shared their particularly unsual pathways to the profession:
5 jobs I've had:
1) supermarket checkout assistant 2)playworker 3) receptionist for the probation service 4) life drawing model 5) note taker for students with additional needs https://t.co/hIHAavmZHq
While Kate Murray, a solicitor specialising in medical negligence at Minton Morrill Solicitors revealed her five includes working at the checkout at supermarket chain Asda. “I still hear the beeping now ”, she quipped.
5 jobs I’ve had: 1. Worked on the sweet / cigarette counter in a post office 2. Kindergarten Assistant in Germany 3. Checkout at Asda – I still hear the beeping now 4. Call Centre for store card company 5. Solicitor https://t.co/ARi0si09pK
— Kate Murray (Eccles) (@kate_the_lawyer) April 23, 2019
Barman/barmaid, shop assistant, singer, waiter/waitress, sports coach and even “glass picker” made an appearance on some lawyers’ extraordinary CVs:
1. Glass picker @ recycling plant (removing broken glass from conveyor belt of waste) 2. Waitress/ bar staff at the races 3. Supply teacher 4. Trainee solicitor/ solicitor/ associate 5. Mamma to my 10month old
Summing up the series of tweets, Owen Franks, commercial property solicitor at Ashtons Legal, commented that “they show how varied the legal profession has become”, whereas before, “solicitor” and “partner” would be the only roles featured.
What I like about these lists is they show how varied the legal profession has become. Back in the day, the list for solicitors would have read:
Some partners get all the luck. David Cohen, a regulatory and litigation partner at US law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, landed himself a role as an extra in the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
Swapping the tedium of partner meetings for the imagined land of Westeros, Cohen plays a local peasant being conscripted into fighting against the White Walkers. He is seen on camera looking suitably miserable in a queue for a plate of yuk-looking gruel from Ser Davos Seaworth played by Liam Cunningham.
The partner was lucky enough to get the part because his brother-in-law, David Benioff, is one of the show’s co-creators, and Cohen and his family happened to be paying Benioff a Thanksgiving visit in Belfast where GOT was being filmed at the time.
Being an extra on a blockbuster show doesn’t sound as if it is all glamour though. Cohen, who journeyed to the rural location of Winterfell castle, an hour out of Belfast, told US law website Law.com:
“We went out there and got our costumes and makeup and hair all done — and then spent six hours freezing because it was really cold.”
News of Cohen’s debut on the big screen came from a tweet from the official account of the CIA — of all places. It turns out that Cohen spent two years there as deputy director following a stint at the US Treasury Department.
A perk of working for CIA is world travel. Apparently that sometimes extends to other realms…
Meanwhile, the Game of Thrones‘ fan base continues to grow and thrive (around 17 million people tune in officially worldwide with almost three times that number tuning in with piracy viewings). Earlier this month, Legal Cheekreported that Durham Law School was teaming up with Abertay University in Dundee to host a one-day conference examining how the show portrays law, power and justice.
What might well be renamed ‘The David Cohen episode’ aired on Easter Sunday on HBO in the US and on Sky Atlantic (and NOW TV) in the UK as part of the Transatlantic ‘simulcast’.
It’s the eighth and final season of the hit show and will determine who wins the Iron Throne. Cohen added that he could exclusively reveal “with certainty” that it was not his character that gets the coveted seat.
‘Pathways Programme’ offers opportunities in areas including legal project management and legal technology — but doesn’t lead to qualification as a solicitor
Global outfit Ashurst has become the latest law firm to offer graduates the opportunity to pursue careers in new and emerging legal roles.
The scheme, ‘Ashurst Advance Pathway Programme’, or ‘Pathway’ for short, offers successful participants a “structured career path with a range of potential role and skills development opportunities”, but does not lead to qualification as a solicitor or mimic the structure of a training contract.
As things stand, the scheme offers options to train in so-called “new law” roles including legal operations, legal project management, legal technology and legal process improvement, with the opportunity to complete professional qualifications along the way. Successful applicants ideally will have a background in law, according to the firm, however this doesn’t necessarily preclude grads without an LLB from applying.
Pathway participants will be based in one of the firm’s two ‘Ashurst Advance’ support hubs, either Glasgow or Brisbane, but there may be the option to switch to other offices depending on their chosen career path.
Mike Polson, co-head of Ashurst Advance, said:
“The launch of the Ashurst Advance Pathway Programme reflects the growing need for a wider range of roles and skills in the delivery of legal services to our clients. By offering graduates a wide range of alternative career development opportunities, including into a number of ‘new law’ roles, we ensure we attract and retain the best talent. Individuals are now empowered to take ownership of their development through a structured career path which provides opportunities for them to develop a highly varied and valuable skill-set and move into a diverse range of roles across Ashurst.”
In terms of intake, Ashurst confirmed it already recruits around 20 graduates a year in similar roles but will look to increase this now the scheme is officially established.
This, however, isn’t the first time a City law firm has offered graduates a training contract alternative.
Yo this is a case you must have seen about the statutory test in section 18
A solicitor at national outfit Slater & Gordon has just dropped what could potentially be the sound of the summer, channelling his inner Fresh Prince to produce an incredible employment law-themed rap.
James Watkins, an employment specialist in Slater & Gordon’s Cardiff office, added his own special musical twist to an otherwise routine “case update training session”, spitting fire bars to the theme tune of the classic American sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
In a video posted to Twitter by fellow Slater & Gordon lawyer Juliette Franklin, Watkins (otherwise known as “The Fresh Prince of Cardiff”) is seen playing a keyboard and donning the firm’s branded headgear, twisted to the side in Fresh Prince-esque fashion.
Watkins raps about a recent case, South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust v Jackson, that was heard before the UK Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT). In the case, the NHS sent Mrs Pease, who was on maternity leave, an important letter about redundancies to her work email account, to which she did not have access. The EAT found this to be unfavourable treatment but did not rule whether it amounted to maternity discrimination.
Speaking to Legal Cheek, the Fresh Prince Watkins said:
“I was asked to present a case at our case law update session this week via video conference. I thought I’d take a more creative approach and hopefully raise a smile. I love a bit of old school rap and everyone loves the Fresh Prince of Bel Air so thought I’d work the case into a song. Once I read the judgment and thought of one verse, it was easy to add more and to learn the key principles as I went along.”
He added: “I hadn’t quite anticipated how well received it would be! But if it gets people talking about their rights in the workplace it’s a good thing.”
International outfit Fieldfisher is set to merge with Dublin-based player McDowell Purcell, as it looks to strengthen its footing in the EU legal market post-Brexit.
The deal, formally agreed this week, sees Fieldfisher join a growing list of law firms to establish Dublin outposts following 2016 referendum including DLA Piper, Pinsent Masons, Lewis Silkin and Simmons & Simmons.
McDowell Purcell is the smaller of the two firms, with just 16 partners and 50 lawyers. The single-office-outfit specialises in, among other things, corporate & commercial, banking & finance and employment. By way of comparison, Fieldfisher has 24 offices in 11 countries and around 700 lawyers.
Michael Chissick, managing partner at Fieldfisher, described the move as the “last piece” in its international growth strategy. He said:
“Ireland is also one of the most successful economies in the EU… Its corporate tax rate is the second lowest in the EU which, together with a young workforce, good infrastructure and English speaking population, makes it an excellent investment for us. And of course with Brexit on the horizon, it will also help us to continue to deliver services to our European clients.”
“We have worked collaboratively with Fieldfisher for a number of years now, and as a result of the strong relationship that has developed between the two firms, this merger is a natural fit for us.”
Meanwhile, Bristol-headquartered Burges Salmon has announced the launch of its first Scottish office in Edinburgh. The new outpost opens next month and will initially be home to eight lawyers. There is, however, still no word on whether the firm will offer training contracts north of the border.
On Burges’ expansion, managing partner Roger Bull said: “The launch of our Edinburgh office is exciting and will enable us to support the firm’s growing client-base and long-standing Scottish practice.”
Over half believe smaller firms offer a more supportive culture
Two-thirds of solicitors are currently experiencing “high levels” of stress, according to a recent report.
The research, produced by LexisNexis, found that 66% of solicitors were suffering “high levels” of stress, while around one in four described their stress as “extreme” or “very high”. Despite this, less than a quarter of respondents felt more could be done to support them in the workplace. Thirty percent of the 176 UK solicitors who responded to the survey described their stress levels as “average”.
Half of those surveyed said they had a positive state of mind, while four out of five reported high levels of job satisfaction.
Elsewhere in the report, 62% of those surveyed believe small law firms were better at fostering an environment of support and culture compared to their larger City counterparts, while a whopping 92% felt small outfits offered a better range of benefits including the “ability to remain in control” and “better client experience”.
Jon Whittle, market development director at LexisNexis UK, said:
“We found a robust, optimistic profession which continues to believe that hard work pays off in a bright successful future… It’s important to understand that while the future looks bright there are shadows at work.”
Alleged incident involved female member of staff, tribunal hears
Ryan Beckwith
A partner in Freshfields‘ London office is alleged to have engaged in sexual contact with a woman without her consent, a tribunal heard.
During a case management hearing on Friday the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) was told that Ryan Beckwith, a restructuring and insolvency specialist, admitted purchasing drinks for colleagues before sharing a taxi with a female member of staff to her home.
The Solicitor’s Regulation Authority (SRA) is still to publish the full list of charges Beckwith faces, however the Law Society Gazette reports that it’s the regulator’s case that the alleged sexual contact took place when the “complainant was not in a position to consent”. It further claims that Beckwith’s alleged actions were “unbecoming of a solicitor” and that he “misused his position of power”, according to the report.
The tribunal heard from Beckwith’s barrister, Alisdair Williamson QC of Three Raymond Buildings, who argued that the charges were beyond the remit of the regulator and that proceedings amounted to an abuse of process.
He went on to challenge the regulator’s evidence against Beckwith, including a transcript from an interview with a witness claiming that the woman — referred to only as ‘Person A’ and who has since left the firm — had consumed “six or seven glasses of wine and Jaegerbombs later”.
“We are aware of the publication regarding a hearing before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal involving a partner at the firm, who is on indefinite leave. The matter is subject to proceedings and we are unable to comment further.”
The top City lawyer studied law at Anglia Polytechnic University (now Anglia Ruskin University), before going on to study civil law at the University of Oxford. He made partner in 2012. The case management hearing will continue in June
Comments on this article are closed for legal reasons.
Easy-to-understand coding tool and AI-powered dictation platform among inaugural cohort
Slaughter and May’s London office
Slaughter and May today confirmed the identities of the first six legal tech start-ups to join its innovation incubator.
The companies will have access to the magic circle outfit’s lawyers, clients and expert panels for product testing, among other things. The programme, dubbed Slaughter and May Collaborate, will see each cohort member also assigned two dedicated firm mentors — one from the firm’s knowledge or innovation team and a lawyer from a relevant practice area.
The six start-ups, whittled down from over 50 applicants, are:
Tabled — a platform which helps lawyers manage tasks and projects by “automating workflows and assigning tasks”, which in turn provides a “full picture of the team’s legal work”.
StructureFlow — a system which enables lawyers and their clients to “quickly and easily visualise complex legal structures and transactions”.
Clarilis — a tool which can create “even the most complex of legal documents without the need to amend existing precedents or templates first”.
JUST: Access — an “easy-to-use dictation solution” which uses AI to produce transcripts.
Logiak — a tool which allows lawyers with “no coding experience to create complex logic/rule-based systems”.
LitiGate — an “AI-powered litigation platform” which provides a “bird’s eye view of each case and automates day-to-day tasks”.
Nilufer von Bismarck, partner at Slaughter and May said:
“We are very pleased with the businesses we are taking into Collaborate in this first cohort. They fought off some very strong competition from a high calibre of applicants. We look forward to working with some of the best legal tech entrepreneurs to bring new tools to the legal sector.”
Organisation representing solicitors is doing a terrible job of it, former policy guru Crispin Passmore says
Crispin Passmore
An influential legal policy guru has launched a scathing attack on the “protectionist” Law Society, accusing the venerable institution of going against the interests of its members in campaigning to protect traditional law firms.
Crispin Passmore, a former director of policy at the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), says that the Law Society had been “captured” by “backward-looking” small time solicitors who are “contemptuous of ‘big law’, of innovative law firms and of change”.
The post cites the Law Society’s opposition to solicitors operating outside a traditional law firm setting as an example of its backward ways. Adding insult to injury, Passmore argues, “solicitors in those businesses, solicitors in separate business and those in unregulated business are paying 30% of their practice fees to an organisation that uses the cash to campaign against them competing against traditional law firms. It really is a model that cannot last much longer”.
Passmore reports the feeling of “many solicitors” that their representative body is “irrelevant, though expensive”. The ex-SRA bigwig says that the Law Society should focus on representing individual solicitors rather than the interests of firms.
Calling for Chancery Lane to ring the changes, Passmore writes:
“To deliver this sort of Law Society focused on members, we need to see significant governance changes, starting with the Council, currently compromising of 100 solicitors, to make it fit for purpose and flexible. An immediate decision to not take 30% of regulated firm’s practising certificate fee would signal intent that it is focused on representing individual solicitors and does not favour one business model over another.”
The criticism of the 100-member governing council echoes that of former Law Society chief exec Catherine Dixon, who dramatically resigned in 2017 after her frustration with the “bureaucratic” set-up boiled over.
Sticking to “protectionism”, Passmore concludes, will leave the Law Society heading to “irrelevance and then extinction”.
Regulator urged to reinstate mandatory minimum salary — again
The Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) has warned the regulator that wannabe solicitors are at risk of exploitation under the work experience element of the new Solicitors’ Qualifying Examination (SQE).
In a letter to Paul Philip, chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), the JLD said that under the current proposed format, aspiring solicitors could gain the work experience required to pass SQE2 “without receiving any remuneration”.
With this in mind, the letter urges the SRA to reinstate a mandatory minimum salary for trainee solicitors and consider how to build in a mandatory minimum salary for future solicitors undertaking work experience as part of the SQE.
As things stand, the Law Society recommends (i.e. firms can choose to ignore it) trainees be paid £21,561 in London and £19,122 elsewhere. The minimum pay levels had previously been enforceable by law, however, amid many objections, this was scrapped by the SRA in 2014.
The letter continues:
“The SRA should ensure that a mechanism is in place which means that aspiring solicitors gaining their ‘work experience’ under the SQE are not working for less than the National Living Wage… and that entry to the profession genuinely is open to all.”
The SQE, due to come into force in September 2021, will be split into two parts: SQE1 focusing on black letter law and taking the form of a computer-based, multiple-choice assessment, while SQE2 will test prospective solicitors’ practical legal skills such as advocacy and interviewing. The new format will replace both the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL).
This, however, isn’t the first time junior lawyers have called on the regulator to reassess its decision to scrap the mandatory minimum salary. Earlier this year, the Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) warned low pay was having a “direct impact” on social mobility within the profession and was one of the “biggest challenges” facing junior lawyers.
An academic at Durham University Law School has provoked furious debate after saying that a high-profile rape allegation against student Liam Allan wasn’t necessarily “false”.
Criminal law assistant professor Hannah Bows made the Twitter claim despite the now infamous case being dropped after evidence emerged that the sex was consensual. The post generated protests from Allan and even the prosecuting barrister in the case.
Allan’s case generated a wave of media coverage at the end of 2017. The criminology student was charged with rape and sexual assault, but police failed to disclose crucial texts from the complainant that fatally undermined the case against him.
When the texts eventually surfaced — midway through the trial — they reportedly showed the complainant requesting sex with Allan and telling friends that she had enjoyed it. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction and halted the case.
Responding to a BBC report yesterday that Allan had been “falsely accused”, Bows tweeted that “there is no evidence the allegation was false. The case was dropped due to police errors”.
Hi @BBCBreakfast, you referred to the ‘false’ allegation of rape against Liam Allen as part of your story this morning on disclosure in police investigations into rape. There is no evidence the allegation was false. The case was dropped due to police errors #responsiblereporting
The comment drew a strong response — including from Allan himself. He told Bows that there were messages “disproving the allegation entirely”.
The case was dropped due to the text messages disproving the accusation entirely? The fact it was dropped so late was because of the police errors. The content of the messages I can't talk about due to legal restrictions, hope that helps with understanding though
Disgusted lawyers also piled in, with criminal solicitor Nicholas Diable saying “It is an established fact that the case was dropped because messages were found in which the complaint made clear the sex was consensual”.
Jerry Hayes, the prosecuting barrister in Allan’s case, weighed in to say that “the withheld evidence showed that the allegations were false. That’s why I offered no evidence”.
Not so. The case was dropped because the withheld evidence showed that the allegations were false. That’s why I offered no evidence https://t.co/0Ftuq8PlSx
Some members of the public supported the academic. Dr Ann Olivarius replied “why the distinction is so hard to understand for so many escapes me”, and Jill Arnold said “Glad you spoke out – the BBC throw in falsehoods (very sloppy journalism) all the time”.
But many responses were hostile. Some lawyers even claimed that Bows’s point could get her sued for defamation. David Hughes, a barrister at 30 Park Place Chambers, warned that “your tweets are an example of how easily very significant liability can be incurred, very quickly”.
You do appear determined to get sued for libel.
Your tweets are an example of how easily very significant liability can be incurred, very quickly.
In follow-up tweets, Bows suggested that a rape allegation shouldn’t be described as false unless the claimant has actually been charged or convicted of making false allegations.
He has confirmed what we already knew – that the evidence weakened the case and there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction. My point still stands – she has not been found guilty of making a false allegation. There is no conclusive evidence she made a false allegation
I would say by going through the proper processes that we have for anyone accused of a crime. But for me that is the point, she hasn’t been formally accused or charged for a false allegation yet the implied rhetoric is that she is guilty of it
She added: “I am stating the victim should not be described as/implied to be a liar/making false allegations when this has not been proven. Simples”.
The responses to this are incredibly predictable. I am been told I am implying the defendant in this case is guilty. Actually, I am stating the victim should not be described as/implied to be a liar/making false allegations when this has not been proven. Simples. https://t.co/6T7M95cJDU
Bows, whose research focuses on violence against women, victimology and feminist and socio-legal theory, is also a local magistrate. She told Legal Cheek last night that she had nothing further to add on the controversy.
Allan’s case is back in the headlines because of plans to change how alleged victims of crime give consent to having their phones examined by police. Media reports say that new police consent forms amount to “Hand over your phones or see attackers walk free“, but the CPS has attacked “serious inaccuracies” in media coverage, adding that “it is not true that complainants in rape cases must automatically hand over personal data on their digital devices or run the risk of the prosecution being dropped”.
Morette Jackson, director of business development at The University of Law
Morette Jackson, The University of Law’s (ULaw) director of business development, has spent the last year meeting with some of the UK’s leading law firms to discuss what is set to be the most disruptive and challenging shake-up to legal education in a generation: the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). When it comes into force in September 2021, the SQE, a new centrally assessed set of exams, will replace the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) — the existing route to qualification as a solicitor.
In a profession well-known for being risk adverse, it is unsurprising law firms express their concerns about the SQE to Jackson. “Without doubt there are challenges ahead and we are working closely with law firms to meet those challenges to ensure that together, we make the most of the opportunity to innovate,” she says. Even US law firms based in the UK — whose familiarity with the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), a standardised assessment in the US that is uniformly administered and graded and would supposedly put them in a good position to deal with the change — are getting to grips with how the SQE will affect their trainee intake.
The new qualification requires candidates to complete two stages: SQE1, which covers black letter law, and SQE2 which assesses practical skills, such as advocacy. In addition to this, candidates will be required to complete two years of qualifying work experience with up to four different legal employers.
According to Jackson, who has 20 years’ experience teaching and managing ULaw’s LPC and GDL programmes, herein lies the first major challenge for law firms. Should law students complete the two SQE exams separately or consecutively? Or should SQE2 be frontloaded before arrival at the office rather like some firms currently treat the compulsory Professional Skills Course? On the one hand, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), who is spearheading the change, strongly recommends candidates complete SQE1 before their qualifying work experience, and the SQE2 post-training. On the basis that SQE2 will assess whether candidates possess the competencies expected of a solicitor, it makes sense that they first develop these practical skills through work experience.
Law firms, on the other hand, are concerned with the practical challenges of dividing the assessment and releasing trainees to sit SQE2 with time off from the office, explains Jackson, who previously practised at Davies Arnold Cooper (now DAC Beachcroft). Currently, most law firms, particularly those in the City, sponsor their future trainees to undergo the LPC, either through a year-long or seven-month accelerated version of the course. When they come to accept LPC graduates into their firms as trainees, it’s on the basis that they have completed and passed the compulsory legal education, and any of their required electives.
Under the new format, at what point should trainees be given time to complete the SQE? More importantly, Jackson stresses, what happens if trainees complete the training but go onto fail the SQE? To avoid this, trainees could be expected to take weekend and evening classes in preparation for the SQE2 — much to the dismay of already at-capacity City trainees. “We are working with firms to make sure that any training for the SQE involves the best preparation possible for exam success and meets the needs of the profession to prepare prospective trainees for life in the office,” she adds.
That being said, dividing the route to qualification into two stages and taken separately could enable self-funding law students to mitigate financial risk. Although some critics claim the overall cost of the SQE will be higher than the LPC, students would be able to hold off paying out for the SQE2 until they manage to secure qualifying work experience. This is in line with the SRA’s overarching aim of eliminating the so-called ‘LPC gamble’, where self-funding law students can pay upwards of £16,000 for the LPC without any guarantee they will eventually qualify. The result of this gamble? A bottleneck into the profession.
“As it stands there is a training contract shortage; with more and more law students chasing a finite number of available contracts,” explains Jackson. This bottleneck has been partially eroded through alternative routes to practice, she notes. Jackson points to the SRA’s Equivalent Means (Exemptions) that enables experienced paralegals to qualify without having a training contract; and more recently, solicitor apprenticeship programmes, which see school-leavers combine study with on the job training, a route that has been gaining momentum in recent years.
Still, there is concern that the SQE will simply replace the bottleneck of LPC graduates searching for training contracts with a bottleneck of newly qualified (NQ) solicitors upon admission to the roll. Jackson explains: “While the SQE may lead to an increase of newly qualified solicitors, it doesn’t mean there is any more work. If there are no jobs to be had, then what will become of these solicitors? Taking the SQE does not guarantee that you will find the right employer to start your legal career.” One way to avoid this jam is by making use of the employability services on offer at your university, Jackson recommends. At ULaw, for example, law students have access to a mentoring scheme that pairs up candidates with suitable law firms, as well as CV checking and one to one mentoring.
The second major challenge for law firms is the actual content of the SQE. While it will cover core legal modules — from criminal law to tort — the SQE leaves a lot to be desired due to the lack of elective modules. While the vast majority of candidates will undertake preparation courses prior to sitting the SQE, an unprescribed route to qualification could lead to a gap in knowledge and skills among future trainees. “Law firms want their trainees arriving knowing more rather than less. We are working closely with law firms to make sure that any SQE training fits the needs of the profession and that standards are maintained,” Jackson says.
A likely solution to the challenges ahead will be that large corporate players, especially those who sponsor their trainees, will design their own bespoke, structured SQE prep courses in association with existing providers, such as ULaw — something which Jackson will discuss during Legal Cheek’s Future of Legal Education and Training Conference 2019 on 22 May. Some law firms, take this is as a positive rather than negative, Jackson finds. It’s a unique opportunity for law firms to be more creative in designing the training and preparation for their prospective trainees, especially in emerging areas such as legal tech. On this, Jackson, who was previously the director of ULaw’s Moorgate centre, says:
“Times have changed and maybe the LPC’s traditional one-size-fits-all approach has had its day. We haven’t seen an overhaul in a long time, so ULaw welcomes the opportunity to look at how we teach law in light of the new skills a generation of lawyers will need. We will be making full use of the opportunities to innovate presented by the SQE to truly reflect practice in all its forms.”
A drawback of having these bespoke SQE courses is that this could lead to a ‘two-tier’ system among candidates, depending on whether they opted for one of these elite courses or a budget version. A way of tackling this is for SQE providers, like ULaw, to be upfront with their candidates, letting them know which routes are preferred by law firms. Jackson explains:
“It all starts with communication and making sure that all our entrants are aware that while doing the bare minimum of preparation courses and different bits of qualifying work experience will get you admitted, you may not be on a par with other candidates who have studied a more comprehensive and structured programme.”
Although candidates could proceed to examination without first completing any preparation course at all, SQE providers should be upfront about the success rates of doing so. Jackson compares the SQE to the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme (QLTS), an assessment that foreign lawyers can take in order to qualify in England and Wales, which like the SQE, can be taken without any prior training. Those who fail the QLTS are often those without a programme of study — and the SQE is unlikely to be any different, she predicts.
Another way of dismantling a potential tiered system is through the SRA’s plans to publish different SQE providers’ exam results. It is hoped such transparency will confer purchasing power onto prospective SQE students to make decisions based on a provider’s performance rather than perceived status alone.
While Jackson welcomes this initiative, she also questions how easy it will be to interpret data and how handy it will be when making purchasing decisions. For example, can the results of a student who took the SQE exams after limited preparation be compared against another candidate who took SQE preparation modules as part of their undergraduate law degree, or even a candidate who chooses to complete a top-up revision course at another provider? “We will have to ensure data is comparable — that we are comparing like with like,” Jackson adds.
On a final note, Jackson stresses: “Innovation and disruption brings opportunities and we need to work closely together with the legal profession, the SRA and the academic community to ensure the right outcome for the future of legal education and training.”
Human rights specialist Jessica Jackson dishes the goss
Kim Kardashian broke the internet when she revealed last month she is studying to become a lawyer. Now, one of her attorney mentors, Jessica Jackson, has opened up about what it’s like training up the media mogul.
To some it would seem a rather unlikely pairing: Jackson, a human rights attorney and co-founder of #Cut50, an organisation fighting to end mass incarceration, and Kim Kardashian, reality TV star, social media sensation and global beauty icon whose rise to fame is perhaps better left unsaid.
Yet, the two have come together; notably through Jackson’s involvement in criminal justice reform and her reaching out to Kim K to bring a dash of celebrity to the case to free 63-year-old Alice Marie Johnson from a life behind bars after a first-time, non-violent drug offence (a union that resulted in Kardashian meeting with President Trump at the White House to discuss prison reform). She’s also the lawyer tasked with helping Kardashian realise her lawyer dream — and one Jackson says shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Dishing out the goss to US women’s lifestyle and entertainment site Refinery29, Jackson said:
“I would say never underestimate Kim Kardashian West… In all her business ventures, she has been successful. I have no reason to believe her commitment to criminal justice reform will be any different. Ms. Alice’s story awakened something in her — something that resonates with her father’s career as a lawyer.”
Indeed, Kimmie’s lawyerly ambitions haven’t materialised out of thin air. Her late father, Robert Kardashian, was a US defence lawyer who famously worked on OJ Simpson’s murder trial.
Elsewhere, Jackson discusses the first-year law student’s work with the #Cut50 team. “Kim cares deeply about people who are negatively impacted by incarceration. She has spent time with us meeting with people living inside prisons, meeting with formerly incarcerated people, crafting policy, and working on individual cases, while also learning more about the law. I’m proud of the work she’s doing.”
The 38-year-old socialite of Keeping up with the Kardashians fame confirmed she had begun a four-year legal apprenticeship with an unnamed law firm in San Fran last summer, with a view to sitting the California bar exam in 2022 in May’s issue of Vogue. Despite not possessing a university degree, Kardashian’s path into law is possible because California is one of a number of US states that allow aspiring lawyers to sit their final bar exams without a law degree.
It seems the help of Jackson and her other mentor, Erin Haney, both of whom were pictured alongside Kardashian in a snap posted to the glamorous star’s Instagram account where she has over 136 million followers, appears to have helped. The mother-of-three (soon to be four) sat her first of three exams last month and tweeted, “Aced my test btw ”.
This follows Kim K’s sister and fellow reality TV star, Kourtney Kardashian, revealing to host Ellen DeGeneres on Monday’s episode of the popular day-time TV show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, that Kimmie has already begun laying down the law on her famous siblings.
“Everything is such a liability… When we were at one of our Sunday services that Kanye [Kim’s husband] throws … they used to be indoors … and she’s like ‘Oh my gosh this is such a liability’. She just knows all these laws now… it’s annoying,” she told DeGeneres.
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Global legal education provider to teach out of London’s Dickson Poon School of Law from September
Credit – King’s College London
Law graduates and UK qualified lawyers will soon be able to study for the New York or California state bar exam at King’s College London (KCL), thanks to a new tie-up between the Russell Group uni’s law school and legal education provider BARBRI International.
From September, BARBRI’s bar preparation programme will be taught out of The Dickson Poon School of Law, having previously operated from the University of Liverpool’s London campus in Finsbury Square.
The ten-month prep course combines classroom and online learning and sees each aspiring lawyer assigned their own personal study mentor, who themselves will be a US qualified attorney. The first cohort will work towards sitting the US bar exam in July 2020.
“We’re operating within an increasingly global legal landscape presenting a tremendous opportunity for lawyers dual-qualified in the US and UK,” said Sarah Hutchinson, managing director of BARBRI. “We’re very pleased to partner with a university of such standing as King’s in a collaboration that will enable international graduates and lawyers to achieve their career aspirations to become a US licenced attorney and take advantage of the global opportunities.”
As part of the new arrangement, KCL students and alumni will receive a 20% discount on course fees.
Commenting on the new deal, Professor Gillian Douglas, executive dean of The Dickson Poon School of Law, added: “Preparing students for global practice is a key component of the School’s education priorities and reflects the ambitions of our world-class students.”
The partnership comes almost a year after BARBRI struck a similar deal with Durham University, which sees teaching take place at weekends to enable students to complete the course while studying for their law degree.
Final seat trainees are ‘easy targets’ for recruiters, warns magic circle lawyer turned career coach Husnara Begum — so be sure to follow these top tips
As law firms gear up for their Autumn 2019 trainee solicitor qualification rounds legal recruitment agencies are making their own preparations. They’ll be scouring LinkedIn to identify potential newly qualified (NQ) candidates to pounce on. I should know. I’ve been there and worn the T-shirt.
Final seat trainees are easy targets for recruiters who are looking to build their databases. Many are young and impressionable and even if a recruiter doesn’t secure a successful placement immediately, candidates they manage to register over the next few months will be valuable sources for future fees or at the very least, referrals. As such, if you’re approaching qualification do not be surprised if your inbox is currently being inundated with LinkedIn ‘InMails’ or connection requests.
So should you be engaging with legal recruiters? If you are considering making a move on qualification then it is definitely worth listening to what they have to say because most are relatively well placed to offer insight into how the jobs market will fair for Autumn 2019 qualifiers. But rather than respond to an unsolicited email or cold-call I suggest asking your trusted contacts (these can include trainees who qualified earlier this year) for recommendations.
But let’s get something straight. Contrary to what so many of the trainees and indeed qualified lawyers on my outplacement programme think — legal recruiters are not careers advisers. They are salespeople often having to juggle conflicting interests. On the one hand they have their clients’ requirements to consider while on the other they have to look after the needs of their candidates. Then add to that their billing targets, and it’s inevitable that they will favour ready-made candidates. By that I mean ones from leading firms, with well-drafted CVs, a clear and realistic idea of what they’re after and who are likely to do well at interviews. This is especially the case for NQs because for as long as I’ve been workings as a recruiter/career coach the number of final seat trainees searching for new positions outstrips the volume of ‘live’ positions.
Recruitment agencies vary hugely in size and make-up. The larger ones tend to have more clients but may not always have such close relationships with them. What’s more you may well find that you get passed between consultants depending on which client has the vacancy. In contrast, the smaller/boutique agencies represent fewer clients but may work more collaboratively with them. It’s also worth noting that most consultants typically specialise in either private practice or inhouse recruitment and not both.
I’d therefore recommend doing your due diligence before firing off your CV to all and sundry. You can do this simply by picking up the phone to an agency you’re thinking of registering with and then asking some very basic questions including the following: What type of firms do you mostly work with? Do your consultants specialise in any particular practice areas? How many years’ experience do you have in recruitment and what is your background? What is the market for NQ solicitors looking like?
When discussing vacancies with a recruiter always remember to ask them to confirm if they are ‘live’ roles that a firm is actively trying to fill or are they suggesting ‘speculative’ approaches.
Unfortunately, some recruiters blur the line between these and although the latter method does work for some candidates the former will naturally have a stronger chance of generating an interview. Also, if you do decide to pursue speculative approaches then you might want to restrict these to a no-names basis to test a firm’s initial appetite. Either way, set strict parameters for the recruiter in terms of which firms they are permitted to contact and on what basis (ie with a full CV or an anonymised profile).
And for the avoidance of doubt as well as for future reference I’d recommend confirming the full list of firms in an email. Also, ask the recruiter to show you the final version of your CV that they will be circulating and again sign it off in an email and keep a copy for your records. Incidentally, a good recruiter should help you to prepare your CV or at the very least finesse it.
You are not obliged to work exclusively with one recruiter and indeed if you are actively looking for an NQ role then it’s worth speaking to two to three agencies in the first instance. Though most agencies are instructed on the same roles some firms will have their preferred recruiters and may well release roles to those individuals ahead of others. In the event two different agencies approach you about the same role then go with the one that can demonstrate the strongest working relationship with the employer because they are more likely to be able to influence whether or not you get short-listed for interview.
In the event you do decide to work with more than one recruiter then ensure there is no duplication in the list of firms each one is working with. You can do this by recording details of all applications on a simple spreadsheet. Take it from me the quickest way to make a future employer lose confidence in you is to receive your CV from two competing agencies. And trust me this happens more often than you think.
I would recommend being as transparent as possible with the recruiters you choose to work with. Again this will prevent duplication and help the recruiter to gain a clearer understanding of what you are after. Although beware of some recruiters who are simply fishing for leads. This is especially acute in the NQ jobs market where vacancies are much more scarce and recruiters often find out about roles from their candidates rather than as a result of a formal instruction from the employer.
If you want more unbiased tips and advice on how to navigate the NQ jobs market then register for The Law Society careers event, aimed specifically for Autumn 2019 NQs. The event will be taking place on London’s Chancery Lane on Thursday 9 May. Register to attend.
Hardwicke’s PJ Kirby QC, Brighton Uni LLB lead Zoe Swan and Frances Bennett, pioneer of Burges Salmon’s legal apprenticeships scheme, to appear at Kings Place London on 22 May
From left to right: PJ Kirby QC, Zoe Swan and Frances Bennett
PJ Kirby QC, commercial silk and joint head of Hardwicke chambers, and Zoe Swan, undergraduate law course lead and lecturer at the University of Brighton, will share their thoughts about mental ill-health in the law and what can be done to address rising concerns. Joining them on the panel session will be LawCare chief Elizabeth Rimmer, Newcastle University’s Professor Richard Collier, Freshfields junior lawyer Lloyd Rees and Junior Lawyers Division committee member Kayleigh Leonie.
Kirby will explore the historical context of the legal profession’s mental health and wellbeing debate and reflect on the attitudinal shift both during his time in practice as a solicitor and now at the bar. The nature of the self-employed bar and its influence over a barrister’s work-life balance will also be a discussion point, and Kirby will touch on the rise of ‘perfectionism’ in law while sharing stories from his own time in practice.
Swan will discuss her recent decision to overhaul the undergraduate law curriculum at Brighton to include content on wellbeing and resilience for first and second years. The qualified health and wellness coach and soon-to-be yoga instructor strongly advocates students learn holistic skills early in their careers and runs wellbeing workshops for this purpose.
Frances Bennett, resource manager at Burges Salmon, will feature during the clinical legal education and apprenticeships panel session. The Bristol-headquartered outfit is one of the ‘Trailblazer’ law firms which helped design the government’s new legal apprenticeship standards. Bennett, the architect of Burges’ burgeoning legal apprenticeship programme which launched in 2016, will discuss the advantages of on-the-job learning. She will be joined by legal academics from Nottingham Trent University, Northumbria University and Swansea University, all of which are doing interesting things in this area.
Students interesting in attending (we do not charge students for attending our events) should contact us about becoming part of Legal Cheek‘s campus ambassador programme.
Highlights from last year’s Future of Legal Education and Training Conference
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Clifford Chance is considering scrapping the billable hour as a means of lawyer appraisal and has rolled out a year-long trial to test the new initiative.
The pilot takes place across the global outfit’s Abu Dhabi and Dubai offices and extends to all trainees and associates but excludes partners.
Bonuses paid to reward lawyers’ performance will instead be based on a number of value-add activities including but not limited to professional development, contributions made to the magic circle firm’s knowledge and thought leadership, and time spent progressing its diversity and inclusion, wellbeing and community programmes.
Those participating in the scheme will continue to record their billable hours to ensure the post-pilot data collected is comparable.
Commenting on the new approach, Matthew Layton, global managing partner at Clifford Chance, said:
“To achieve our vision of becoming the global law firm of choice, we need to be prepared to do things differently and to challenge the status quo… With this pilot, we are trying to break the dominance of [the] single metric and allow our teams to think more broadly about where their time is best spent. This may mean investing in time spent developing and applying process improvements to matters, rather than straightforward matter delivery.”
Mo Al-Shukairy, regional managing partner for Clifford Chance in the Middle East, added: “The world we are working in is changing fast. Our people and our clients have different expectations than they had of us in the past. This pilot is an acknowledgement of that change, and an explicit attempt to try to find a new model that is fit for the future.”
The billable hour is widely used as a core metric across the legal profession. It has come under scrutiny in recent years for a number of broadly acknowledged limitations, namely that it does not directly incentivise efficiency nor account for time spent undertaking non-billable work that may be imperative to a firm’s strategy or client service.
Today’s news follows other law firms becoming more creative in their approach to policing solicitors’ hours. Following a successful pilot, Reed Smithrolled out a new scheme last May in which lawyers can allocate up to 50 ‘Innovation Hours’ of their annual billable target to time spent working on innovative projects or products, while some associates in Mishcon de Reya’s London office have had their billable hours slashed by 20% to encourage them to be more innovative.
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Andrew Chadwick, dean of BPP University Law School
(@ExitedBritain) 
”, she quipped.
Yo this is a case you must have seen about the statutory test in section 18 
(@Hannah_Bows) 
#FBPE (@DghSpanishWelsh) 
