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6 items found:
- Ambiguous Allegiances in the Lawyer-Client Relationship: The Case of Bankers and Lawyers
Published: TBA, 2009
Summary: The relationship between law firms and banks has a long history. Bankers and lawyers constantly work together on transactions so that their relationships are deep and enduring. Through the use of ethnography and interviews this paper examines this relationship and that of the lawyer and client. Because of the unusually tight relationship between bankers and lawyers, the lawyer-client relationship needs to be reconstituted. It is not possible to perceive it as merely a dyadic relationship; it is now multi-polar. Even though clients may be sophisticated repeat players, clients are caught up in a relationship where they will always be secondary to the primary relationship of banker and lawyer.
File size: 381Kb, 53pp
Keywords: bankers banks clients law firms lawyer client relationships lawyers relationships - Betting the System and Beating the House? Gillian Tett’s Story of the Financial Crisis: “Fool’s Gold—How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe”
Published: TBA, 2009
Summary: Review of Gillian Tett's 2009 book, "Fool's Gold" on the history and causes of the present financial crisis.
File size: 131 Kb, 7pp
Keywords: capital markets credit rating agencies derivatives finance lawyers regulation - Straight There No Detours: Direct Access to Barristers (with A. Whyte)
Published: TBA, 2009
Summary: The Bar is trying to promote clients' direct access to barristers bypassing solicitors. Direct access has had a very mixed reception from the legal profession.
File size: 272 Kb, 19pp
Keywords: Bar barristers barristers clerks legal profession Legal Services Act - The Transformation of Access to Law and Justice in England and Wales 60 Years On
Published: TBA, 2009
Summary: It is the 60th birthday of legal aid in the UK. The question asked in this paper is: has legal aid reached the end of its life or is it about to enter a new "third age"? The UK has the highest spend on legal aid of any country in the world, running to over £2 billion a year. The vast majority of this goes on criminal legal aid of which a considerable portion pays for very high cost criminal cases. Civil legal aid is the rump receiving whatever is left over after criminal work has been paid for. Over the last 60 years legal aid has gone from near universal coverage to a very limited range of work which is now mostly taken up with family and welfare aid. Means and merits tests exclude most people from accessing legal aid. The supplement/replacement to legal aid has come from the insurance industry with After the Event and Before the Event insurance policies guaranteeing some access to law and justice. Third party litigation funding is also gathering force. The largest component, however, of civil justice in the modern era is in auxillary forms of justice, most notably in the rise of complaints procedures and ombudsmen. In the example used in the paper, the Financial Ombudsman Service, is ranked as the busiest adjudicator in the country dealing with over 700,000 complaints a year. Legal aid has been shrunk by government and has now become part of a mixed model of the delivery of legal services. Whether this will be sufficient to fight Beveridge's five ‘Giant Evils’ of Want (poverty), Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness (unemployment) is still an open question.
File size: 412Kb, 23pp
Keywords: civil CLS funding criminal legal aid legal expenses legal insurance ombudsmen pro bono work - Globalization and Large Law Firms
Published: , 2007
Summary: A brief overview of the rise of the large law firm and its place in the globalized world.
File size: 21 Kb, 5pp
Keywords: globalisation law firms lawyers legal profession - Review Essay - Courtroom 302 by Steve Bogira
Published: TBA, 2006
Summary: A review of Bogira's yearlong observation of a Chicago criminal court, its cases, and its judge.
File size: 50 Kb, 9pp
Keywords: America case management civil control courts criminal dispute resolution drugs judges lawyers re-offenders
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- Transformation of Access to Law and Justice in UK on
15th December 2009
A new paper for a conference in Portugal on access to justice in the UK on legal aid's 60th birthday. Available under the "In Progress" button on the left. Or at SSRN.com - New Review of Gillian Tett's on
15th December 2009
I have put a new paper, Betting the System, reviewing Tett's 2009 book on the financial crisis. You can find it in "In Progress" on the left. - My Standup Gig Video on
20th April 2009
You can see a video of my standup gig at the George in Fleet Street here on Youtube. I battle the demons--aliens speaking to me from space, denying me the right to criticize Hawking, Hamas, and black holes!