Since I wasn’t in Germany for once, I went to look at the procession of judges to the Lord Chancellor’s Breakfast.
Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice:
Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls:
A non-lawyer (no wig):
Photographing us!
A conglomeration of circuit judges:
Recorders?
Lord Chancellor’s Breakfast without a breakfast, 1931 (Pathé News)
Ben thanks his mother for encouraging him to study at the Open University. He calls in a
to do the honours.
Ben, like most other Open University students, had someone to support him through his studies. His tutors, fellow students and family all encouraged him along his learning journey.
But instead of simply saying ‘thank you’ to Jennifer, his mum, for inspiring and motivating him to study, we helped him to do something a million times better.
“I used to be a removal man. My mother sat me down and told me I was so much better than that and I should use my clever brain. I am now working for an ‘in-house’ legal team whilst on my fourth year of a law degree. Thank you.”
Internationally acclaimed barrister Amal Alamuddin marries an actor
Amal is an educated and successful career woman we’ve long admired. The high-flying barrister has notched up many career highs, including representing the controversial WikiLeaks whistleblower Julian Assange, and also has multilingual fluency in English, French and Arabic.
Amal attended St. Hugh’s College, Oxford University, earning her BA/LLB and receiving the Exhibitioner, Shrigley Award. She also attended New York University School of Law earning her LLM and receiving the Jack J. Katz Memorial Award.
…
We think this George Clooney fellow has scored big time.
He’s been quoted as saying he was ‘marrying up’… we agree.
Profile at Doughty Street Chambers.
Amal Alamuddin is a barrister specialising in international law, human rights, extradition and criminal law. She has represented clients in cases before the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, as well as in domestic courts in the UK and US.
Amal also provides advice to governments and individuals on international law, and has been appointed to a number of UN commissions including as adviser to Special Envoy Kofi Annan on Syria, and as Counsel to the Inquiry launched by UN human rights rapporteur Ben Emmerson QC into the use of drones in counter-terrorism operations.
Amal is fluent in French and Arabic and has particular expertise in international criminal law and the Middle East region.
Via vowe.net
I haven’t yet managed to watch a whole episode of the British series Silk, but I would be interested to see the German version. You can buy episodes in the German iTunes store, but that doesn’t work for me. Der Tagesspiegel writes:
Die ehrgeizige Strafverteidigerin möchte unbedingt die Auszeichnung des QC erlangen, des begehrten „Queen’s Counsel“, der zum Tragen einer Robe aus Seide berechtigt sowie dem Träger das Recht einräumt, sich seine Fälle selbst aussuchen und an den höchsten Gerichten vertreten zu können.
Privilegien, begehrt unter britischen Anwälten. „Taking silk“ heißt es dort unter rivalisierenden Anwärtern auf die Kronanwaltschaft, und solche Rivalen befinden sich auch in Shoe Lane.
The barristers’ chambers at Shoe Lane are referred to as a Sozietät and a Kanzlei.
I am told that the details of barristers’ function are a bit mystifying in German. One could have introduced the terms Solicitor and Barrister in German, but instead it looks as if they are Rechtsberater and Prozessanwälte. taz:
Die Serie hat diverse durchlaufende Themen, namentlich die Schwächen des englisch-walisischen Rechtssystems, das aus langer, wenngleich mittlerweile aufgeweichter Tradition zwischen „Solicitors“ und „Barristers“, Rechtsberatern und Prozessanwälten, unterscheidet und so Abhängigkeiten und Machtgefüge schafft. All das wirkt sich auf die Abläufe in der Sozietät aus, wo Billy Lamb schon mal zu unsauberen Methoden greift, aber nicht als einziger intrigiert und manipuliert.
The role of the clerk (der Bürovorsteher) is also mysterious to Germans.
Lord Advocates LLP is an East London immigration law firm near Upton Park station. See video (I don’t know what language they’re speaking, but it is likely to be Urdu, Punjabi or Hindi).
Our expertise covers the whole area of Immigration including applications for British Nationality, British Citizenship, Economic Migration, Further Leave to Remain applications, Settlement, Points Based System applications, Asylum, Human Rights claims, Discretionary Leave applications, Certificates of Abode, Marriage applications, Settlement applications for family members. Registration with the Police, Reporting, Bio-metrics, Legacy and fresh Human Rights applications, passport applications, revocation of leave, applications under the Points Based System such as Students, applications connected to establishing and conducting business in the United Kingdom.
John Flood has published a revised version of his book on a Chicago law firm, called Tischmann and Weinstock for the purposes of the book: What Do Lawyers Do? An ethnography of a corporate law firm. You can get the Kindle version, and the paper versions are due shortly.
John Flood has a website and a weblog called John Flood’s Random Academic Thoughts, where there is a post with more information on the book.
I have often wondered what lawyers do myself – the book is about business lawyers rather than litigators, whose role is easier to understand. Just as people who come straight from translation studies can’t usually translate, new lawyers can’t usually act as lawyers, so I never found it out, although the firm in the book sounds very similar to the Jewish law firm where I did my articles in London, down to the arrangement of the offices. The text is rather dry on the surface, a summary of analysis, but amusing between the lines.
The main activity of lawyers is talking on the telephone with persons other than Tischmann lawyers (31.1%). If we add talking with other Tischmann lawyers by telephone the percentage rises to 23.5 percent. The second largest activity is talking face to face with other Tischmann lawyers (12%). Talking with Tischmann lawyers and others takes up 18.1 percent of lawyers’ billable time. If we sum time spent at meetings outside the office (2.6%), office meetings (0.7%), telephoning and talking face to face, we find lawyers spend 53.9 percent of their chargeable time talking. Writing, however, takes up only 20.8 percent (16.3% – drafting; 4.5% – revising). … Research is an activity mainly carried out by associates.
All the office staff are considered.
All the support staff had to log in and out during the day. If they were late, their salaries were docked. Because they perceived their salaries already low, many secretaries left after having their salaries reduced. Much of the office gossip turned on how much of a “bastard” the office manager was, and who was about to suffer his wrath next. Some of the secretaries were aggrieved at how they were treated by the office manager. They felt he conveniently forgot the many occasions when they came in during weekends to help their attorneys, when he decided to dock their pay for some infraction.
I’m looking forward to reading the rest. I think I first read John Flood on barristers’ clerks, a mysterious species – here’s a blog post on them.