* It must be champagne corks popping all round down at the Royal Courts of
Justice. Sir Igor Judge has received his life peerage after all (see
Watercooler August 28) because Downing Street has specially bestowed one,
even though it no longer comes automatically with the job. So he can sit
among the law lords or even speak in the House of Lords, in theory (although
the latter is unlikely), at least until the Supreme Court is set up next
year and the law lords are disentangled from the Upper House entirely. Lord
Justice May was also announced as the new President of the Queen's Bench
Division from October 1 - taking over from Sir Igor - and Mr Justice
Etherton, chairman of the Law Commission, moves up to the Court of Appeal -
bringing the number of appeal judges to 38.
* Michael Beloff, QC, is back from the Olympics where the public
law/sports barrister received a surprise package - his book on sports law
had been translated into Chinese by a professor at Shanghai University. In
his covering letter the professor said the book was "being distributed
at the Olympics". Beloff is wondering if he can now retire on the
proceeds. He enjoyed another winning moment in Beijing. At the world track
and field championships last year, Beloff was watching Christine Ohurougu -
then under a ban from the Olympic squad because of missing three doping
tests. A passionate athletics fan, Beloff was so impressed that he offered
to represent Ohurougu, pro bono, in her appeal to the UK athletics appeal
tribunal. He won the case - and was in the stands in the Bird's Nest Stadium
to see her win the UK’s only track and field gold medal.
* Top commercial, regulatory and public law silk Richard Lissack is off
to Nairobi. No, not just another lawyer's luxury holiday: together with
fellow barrister from Outer Temple Chambers, Ben Compton, the
QC is climbing Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in the world
with a summit just short of 20,000 feet. The pair want to raise money for
the Depaul Trust,
which works in UK communities, particularly with young people, where poverty
and unemployment has resulted in generations of social exclusion and
homelessness. To sponsor Richard and Ben go to: www.justgiving.com/richardlissack.
* More than 10,000 tickets have been sold for what is billed as a "unique
and historic event" - the Royal Horticultural Floral Celebration at the
Inner Temple. Never mind ping pong coming home to England - this occasion,
part of the Temple 400th anniversary celebrations, is about the Royal
Horticultural Society (RHS) coming home to an Inn of Court. Between 1888 and
1911, the RHS Spring Flower Shows were one of the highlights of the legal
and social calendar until the RHS moved to Chelsea. Judge Simon Brown, QC,
Master of the Garden of the Inner Temple (as well as a specialist mercantile
judge) is planning a book next year on the history of the gardens with his
wife Kathy. All the Inns have historic gardens but the Inner Temple, Brown
says, has one of the oldest and largest historic gardens in London. The
courtyard area of Hare Court may well be the oldest, dating from Saxon
times. The gardens' fame, he says proudly, "has always been pre-eminent."
Currently there is "an ambitious programme" of refurbishment
underway, adapting the garden to climate change and modern styles and
demands. The ambition, Brown adds, is that the gardens will "thereafter
be regarded as one of the world's truly great gardens."
* International law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has done
a deal with The College of Law in which the College becomes the
firm's exclusive partner for the Graduate Diploma in Law, the Legal Practice
Course and the Professional Skills Course. Cleary Gottlieb is the first firm
to strike such a deal with the College, which provides a bespoke training
course. The idea is that the firm will be directly involved in course design
so the programme will be directly relevant to its needs. Caroline Pearce,
head of legal education at the firm, said that working with a single partner
would "ensure a more streamlined approach, ensuring that all training
builds on, rather than duplicates, what went before it." Nigel Savage,
chief executive of the college, hailed the move as an "exciting
development" that reinforced the profession's move to "customised
training." The partnership begins in 2009.
* Lord Goldsmith, QC, former Attorney-General, is luring some good
appointments to his new law firm, Debevoise & Plimpton, to boost
his European litigation group. This week the firm announced that Sophie
Lamb, formerly a partner at Bird & Bird, would join him. Lamb, an
experienced counsel whose practice focuses on complex and
multi-jurisdictional corporate and commercial disputes, was called to the
Bar in 1998 and qualified as a solicitor advocate in 2006. She is also
qualified in the US as well as being recognised as a leading practitioner in
international arbitration in the UK and Europe. Goldsmith, European chairman
of litigation at Debevoise, is clearly chuffed with Lamb's arrival, along
with that of Gaetan Verhoosel from Debevoise's Paris office. Both, he
said, would strengthen the London office.
* Several patients at Rampton secure hospital have won leave to challenge the
hospital's smoking ban. The Court of Appeal this week gave permission to
lawyers from Cartwright King, the civil liberties experts, to appeal
a ruling of the High Court that the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust can
ban smoking in all areas of the hospital - including its grounds. Patients
argue the ban is unlawful and conflicts with article eight of the European
Convention on Human Rights that allows individuals to exercise their rights
in their own home. The ban was imposed in March 2007 ahead of the ban on
smoking in public places brought in by the Health Act 2006, which came into
force in July last year. The act provides for several exemptions, in
particular "premises where a person has a home" and lawyers argue
that essentially Rampton is the patients' home for the duration of their
stay. Laura Pinkney, solicitor with Cartwright King, said: "We
are naturally delighted that permission to appeal has been granted and
believe the appeal has a real prospect of success." There were "fundamental
human rights issue at stake", she added. "The case is of wider
importance, affecting not only our clients at Rampton but all detained
mental patients in hospitals up and down the country."
* Meanwhile Public Interest Lawyers has lodged a High Court challenge
against the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to stop a toxic French
aircraft carrier from being imported into the UK to be dismantled. The "Clemenceau",
which is contaminated with an estimated 760 tonnes of asbestos and 330
tonnes of polychlorinated biphenyls - is one of the most famous toxic ships
in Europe. In June the HSE granted Able UK, a toxic ship-breaking company,
an exemption under asbestos control regulations allowing them to import the
ship into the UK. Jean Kennedy, the claimant bringing the action from the
Friends of Hartlepool group, said: "We feel that it is a deep injustice
to force a small town - which has already disproportionately suffered the
ill-effects of polluting industries and has one of the highest cancer rates
in the UK, to accept France's toxic waste."
