Antonia Romero is a very modern civil servant. She is the Ministry of Justice’s Permanent Secretary. This is a post long in tradition. Within its forerunner, the Lord Chancellor’s Office, the holder was a lawyer until 1998. By contrast, Ms Romero is an economist. She is the first woman in the post. And, in the … Continue reading The Limitations of Delivery
The International Access to Justice Online Forum has been like ‘pinball with flashing lights and ringing bells’ said a reflective Lynne Haultain, executive director of Victoria Law Foundation that organised it jointly with the University of California Civil Justice Research Initiative. The videos of discussion over three days have recently gone online. We need to … Continue reading Pinball, International Conferences and Access to Justice
Pretty well all legal service organisations will have made use of video communication over the Covid period. Some have used it for community outreach work as well as internal communication between staff and external with clients. A previous post covered experience in British Columbia (where the People’s Law School started experimenting with zoom educational outreach … Continue reading Zoom and Legal Outreach: the Manchester experience
An obvious major issue for those involved in digitalising the courts is whether innovation might be more in the interest of some involved in litigation at the expense of others. The senior civil judge in England and Wales, Master of the Rolls Sir Geoffrey Vos, has just walked into a mild (his critics were, after … Continue reading Division in the courts – small claims this way, others that
The needs of tenants have played a major role in the development of legal services. Fifty years ago, gentrification of inner cities meant that there was a rash of illegal evictions by landlords eager to cash in on rapidly escalating house prices. In London, the Legal Action Group took shape as a way of supporting … Continue reading Zoom and Community Legal Outreach: Still Reaching Out after all these Years