A Lawyer Talks

Joshua Rozenberg
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Joshua Rozenberg KC (hon) is Britain's most experienced commentator on the law. This new podcast complements the daily updates he publishes on A Lawyer Writes. rozenberg.substack.com

  1. 1d ago

    LeO tamed

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com LeO “needs to transform”, his handler said this month. LeO, in this context, is the legal ombudsman and his handler is the chair of the Office for Legal Complaints — which, in turn, reports to the Legal Services Board. One enhancement — if not quite a transformation — is suggested in a report today by Blind Justice UK, a small charity that bases its research on published data. I’ve covered two of its reports so far. One in April accused law firms of selectively promoting their consumer reviews and another in May suggested that regulators could do more to identify potential defaults. Its latest research credits LeO for a policy of naming all service-providers involved in complaints that have been resolved by an ombudsman’s final decision. But the report criticises Leo for removing these names after a year. Blind Justice UK has identified nearly 11,500 deleted decisions but it estimates the total to be between 24,000 and 28,000. Only 939 can currently be found online. Why does that matter? To find out, I thought it was time to interview Edward Romain (pictured), the charity’s founder and chief executive, for any episode of A Lawyer Talks. I’ll be putting his concerns to the legal ombudsman and the Office for Legal Complaints chair after the summer holidays. In the meantime, LeO and his handler have provided me with this comment: We are currently consulting on a number of proposals covering our scheme rules, case fees and the principle of publishing ombudsman decisions in full. The consultation seeks views on whether publication of all ombudsman final decisions would help consumers make more informed choices, encourage learning and improvement across the legal sector and align LeO with best practice across other ombudsman schemes. We welcome responses from all interested stakeholders and will carefully consider the feedback received before reaching any decisions. As that work progresses, we will also consider the wider issues that flow from any changes to our publication approach, including how decisions are made available and for how long. My podcast interview, as always, is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.

    LeO tamed

  2. Jul 3

    Inspecting the inspectors

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com The Criminal Cases Review Commission is not a failing institution, inspectors said in a report published yesterday. In the 60 cases they examined, caseworkers had reached the right decisions in their recommendations to commissioners. But in too many cases staff investigating suspected miscarriages of justice went down unnecessary avenues that led to drift, delays and wasted resources. Dame Vera Baird KC, who became chair of the commission just over a year ago and commissioned the report from HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, told me yesterday that she had accepted all its recommendations. Interviewed for A Lawyer Talks, she discussed the steps she had been taking to bring together a team of caseworkers, team managers, executives and commissioners who had notoriously worked from an office that was almost completely empty every day. In my column for today’s Law Society Gazette, I examine how things went wrong and analyse Baird’s plans to put them right. My podcast interview, as always, is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.

    Inspecting the inspectors

  3. Jun 30

    Justice for the unmarried

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com “This consultation,” wrote David Lammy just over three weeks ago, “proposes some of the biggest reforms to family law in decades — bringing the law into the 21st century, helping families feel better off and increasing protections for millions.” Top marks if you already know what he’s talking about; family lawyers need not apply. If you haven’t heard about the justice secretary’s consultation paper on cohabitation, don’t be too hard on yourself; his proposals were slipped out on a Friday afternoon with little fanfare. Because, perhaps, the government was nervous about being seen to undermine marriage? That was the first question I put to Professor Sharon Thompson (pictured) when I interviewed her yesterday for the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks. As she explained, the consultation paper is not just about cohabitants; the government is also planning to put nuptial agreements on a statutory footing and to codify the law on financial remedies following marriage or civil partnership. Will we see legislation along these lines? Or should ministers take another look at the details? Thompson is professor of law at the University of Cardiff and author of a well-timed new book called The Road to Equal Partnership: Reforming the Financial Consequences of Divorce, just published by Bristol University Press. As you can hear, she has some interesting views on the government’s plans. My regular podcast interview, as always, is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.

    Justice for the unmarried

  4. Jun 24

    Not working

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com The employment tribunal system is broken, lawyers dealing with workplace disputes will tell you. It can take three or four years to get a hearing and the delays are expected to get much worse next year. Throwing money at the problem is unlikely to work, even if there was any to spare. But a new academic study of the problem may have some of the answers — both for people who use the tribunals and for those who run them. Reimagining Employment Dispute Resolution and Enforcement has three authors: Dr Maayan Menashe, who’s senior lecturer in law at City St George’s, University of London; Sarah Fraser Butlin KC who practises from Cloisters chambers; and Catherine Barnard, professor of European Union and employment law at the University of Cambridge. Barnard (pictured) is an old friend and I was delighted to interview her yesterday for the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks. My podcast interview — recorded at breakfast time, as you may hear — is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.

    Not working

  5. Jun 9

    Suing the Kremlin

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com There can’t be many compensation claims with legal costs in the millions and damages in double-digit billions. Perhaps one of them is Trump v BBC — I have updated yesterday’s piece to include the judge’s threat to throw out the case after the president’s lawyers missed a deadline. But not even Donald Trump is claiming as much as arbitrators have awarded the former majority shareholders in Yukos Oil — which was Russia’s largest privately owned energy business until the Putin government appropriated its assets between 2003 and 2007. With interest, the amount they are now owed is more than $66 billion. Risking millions in the hope of recovering billions is not for the faint-hearted. I wrote a detailed account of the Yukos claim at the beginning of 2008 and returned to it in 2016, then in 2021, in 2024 and once again in 2024. But it was not until I read Suing the Kremlin, a new book by the former BBC Moscow correspondent Martin Sixsmith, that I began to understand how a few individuals acquired unimaginable wealth and why some if them paid for it with their lives. Sixsmith shared his insights into the case — and gave me his view of the outcome — when I recorded this week’s episode of A Lawyer Talks at his home in London. My podcast interview, as always, is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.

    Suing the Kremlin

  6. Jun 1

    Cutting court backlogs

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com While ministers insist that the only way of ending delays in the Crown Court is to limit the use of juries, a judge responsible for non-jury trials has achieved what’s been described as an “inspiring success” in reducing backlogs. Through collaboration across the criminal justice system of Scotland, Aisha Anwar KC (hon), sheriff principal of Glasgow and Strathkelvin and president of the Sheriff Appeal Court, has managed to cut the number of cases awaiting trial in the summary sheriff courts from over 30,000 during the pandemic to 9,000 at the last count. Scheduled summary trials are now 27% below the pre-pandemic baseline. It was Lord Pentland, Scotland’s most senior judge, who described the summary case management project led by Anwar as an inspiring success that demonstrated the value of close engagement between the judiciary, prosecutors, defence lawyers, police and the court service. When Anwar joined me to record an episode of A Lawyer Talks last Friday, I asked the sheriff principal whether she thought something similar would work in England and Wales. We also found time to talk about the lighthouses that she had been due to visit that afternoon. My podcast interview, as always, is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.

    Cutting court backlogs

  7. May 21

    Bacon at Gray’s

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com Gray’s Inn is paying tribute to an illustrious former member, 400 years after his death. Sir Francis Bacon was one of the most influential figures in British intellectual history and a lawyer whose life and career were deeply intertwined with the inn of court where he felt most at home. At a dinner in hall tonight, Professor Alan Stewart (pictured) — one of the leading experts on the former lord chancellor’s multifaceted achievements — will be speaking about Bacon’s lifelong association with the inn that he joined in 1576 and where he was living shortly before his death 50 years later. Stewart, a professor of literature in New York, kindly agreed to share some of his thoughts with me for the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks. He argued that Bacon could properly be regarded as a true Renaissance man. I suggested that his willingness to accept favours and his attempts to live above his means made him sound surprisingly modern. Readers may remember that I previewed tonight’s celebration of the inn’s former treasurer (elected head) in a short film earlier this year. That’s still free to view: My podcast interview, as always, is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. But others can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.

  8. May 18

    AI: risks and rewards

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com In a judgment published last Thursday, a circuit judge sitting in Walsall explained that he was referring two solicitors to their regulator because false AI-generated case citations had been submitted in an appeal he was hearing. “Lawyers who cite fictitious cases must face serious consequences,” said Judge Grimshaw, “and in the current environment, where this is a problem that is significant (and indeed seems to be growing), the guidance in Ayinde indicates that judges should take a robust approach.” Mahmood Hussain, a consultant at AML Legal in Dudley, had acknowledged that documents citing false judgments had been prepared with the help of a paralegal. The judge observed that an appeal bundle and a covering email had apparently been signed by Kossar Qureshi, the firm’s director. It’s a cautionary tale for solicitors. But the perils of using artificial intelligence may be even greater for barristers. To help them balance risks and rewards, their regulator will be launching new guidance later today. Strikingly, it encourages members of the bar to take a risk-based approach when using new technology. To set the scene, I’ve been discussing the new guidance with the Bar Standards Board’s director of strategy, policy and insights, Ewen MacLeod (pictured), on the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks. My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.

    AI: risks and rewards
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About

Joshua Rozenberg KC (hon) is Britain's most experienced commentator on the law. This new podcast complements the daily updates he publishes on A Lawyer Writes. rozenberg.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Joshua Rozenberg
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    89
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Joshua Rozenberg
  • Show Website
    A Lawyer Talks

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