A Lawyer Writes

This blog focuses on updates and changes in the law. While it is a fresh initiative, the writer brings over 35 years of experience in covering, clarifying, and analyzing legal news.

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Articles

AI: risks and opportunities

1 week ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

Two weeks ago, judges were talking about the risks of artificial intelligence. Today, members of the judiciary offer a rare insight into the opportunities AI may bring. They weren’t talking to me, I hasten to add. Instead, the judges agreed to take part in a series of academic focus groups led by Erin Solovey, Brian Flanagan and Daniel Chen. The authors’eight-page paper is called “Interacting with AI at Work: Perceptions and Opportunities from the UK Judiciary”.
Cyber attacks

1 week ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -0:19Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. In recent weeks we’ve seen cyber attacks on bodies such as the Legal Aid Agency and companies such as Marks & Spencer. But many other attacks are simply not made public. How should organisations defend themselves against risks to their data? And should they pay ransom demands in the hope of getting it back?
ECHR ‘must evolve’

1 week ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

The justice secretary’s call yesterday for reform of the European Convention on Human Rights will come as no surprise my subscribers. As I reported on 30 May, Shabana Mahmood’s government colleague Lord Hermer KC insisted in a lecture the previous day that international law does not give unlimited powers to international courts.
Reforming cross-border justice

1 week ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

The Law Commission has welcomed the publication of a scoping paper that calls on it to review extradition, mutual legal assistance and extraterritorial jurisdiction. The paper, produced by independent experts under an unprecedented agreement with the commission, finds that the current legal frameworks are fragmented, inconsistent and unfit for purpose.
Quilting not wilting

1 week ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

When the Royal Courts of Justice were being built in London during the late nineteenth century, foreign stonemasons brought in as strike-breakers couldn’t risk leaving the building at night and had to bed down just beyond the great hall. To pass the evenings and hone their skills, they carved unauthorised leaf-spirals into some of the stone columns — as can be seen to this day.
Trust in the courts

1 week ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

The United Kingdom’s most senior judge has rejected claims that judges “interfere unwarrantably in the democratic process” and that their decisions are based on applying “values which are not shared by parliament or the general public”. Lord Reed of Allermuir said that criticism of this sort “fails either to understand, or at least to acknowledge, that judges are doing their best to apply the law, not deciding what the law ought to be as a matter of policy”.
Prolific litigant banned

2 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

A “prolific litigant” who issued more than 40 claims against employers over an eight-year period has been issued with a civil restraint order preventing him from bringing new employment tribunal claims and appeals arising from job applications. Sitting as a judge of the High Court in Birmingham, Judge Emma Kelly granted applications by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and five government departments against Zakir Khan, a self-represented defendant.
A common heritage

2 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

What impact has English common law had on the legal system of Israel? That’s the question Lord Pannick KC discussed yesterday with Dorit Beinisch, president of the Supreme Court of Israel from 2006 to 2012. The answer turned out to be considerable. During the British mandate period, there were appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.
Web of accountability

2 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

International laws should not be seen as a threat to our national interest, a former Conservative attorney general argued this week. Baroness Prentis of Banbury KC, who served as senior law officer in the government led by Rishi Sunak from 2022 to 2024, said that it was because of the UK’s historical leadership in the field of international law that judges from Ukraine were willing to accept training from British lawyers — of whom she is one.
Open justice champions

2 weeks ago | rozenberg.substack.com | Joshua Rozenberg

Supporters of courtroom transparency are intrigued by something Mr Justice Nicklin said during a lecture last week. Nicklin, who chairs the judiciary’s transparency and open justice board, was delivering a lecture to the courts and tribunals observers’ network at Green Templeton College, Oxford. Nickin’s open justice board — and HM Courts and Tribunals Service — were aware that there could be “issues” with people gaining timely access to remote hearings, he said.