Edward Fennell’s LEGAL DIARY
Diary news plus insights, commentary and appointments from the legal world
2 May 2025
Editorial contact: fennell.edward@yahoo.com
SHORT THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: TIMELY REFORM?
The dramatic impact of Reform on yesterday’s local (and, minutely, Parliamentary) elections has echoed the brief explosive successes of other interloper parties in recent decades from the SDP to UKIP. Whether the momentum of these protest votes can stand the test of time up to a General Election remains to be seen (not least because there are four years worth of potential bloopers ahead).
But Reform’s programme has to be taken seriously especially by human rights lawyers in terms of the party’s proposal to process all asylum seekers from a “safe country” rapidly and offshore “if necessary” without providing them with legal aid.
The labyrinthine nature of the UK’s immigration processes undoubtedly warrant a shake-up. If Reform’s results yesterday give a jolt to the system that might be a good thing.
The LegalDiarist
In this edition
+ LEGAL DIARY OF THE WEEK
Looking Ahead to the Bar Council Conference
A New Chief Executive for the City of London Law Society
A Model Work Experience Programme for Aspiring Lawyers
Kennedys IQ Takes on Risk in the Insurance Business
+ LEGAL COMMENT OF THE WEEK
on the M&S Hacking crisis, the Infected Blood Scandal, the Employment Rights Bill, Standish vs. Standish, Meta and the European Commission
+ APPOINTMENTS OF THE WEEK
Jenner & Block, Wedlake Bell, Grosvenor Law
LEGAL DIARY OF THE WEEK
Looking Ahead to the Bar Council Conference
The new Channel 4 TV series ‘Barristers: Fighting for Justice’ has garnered plenty of comment and the Legal Diary’s in-house TV critic (a non-lawyer) has been enthralled by it. But it would be interesting to hear what Baroness Harriet Harman KC (left) reckons to it.
She will be a key contributor to this year’s Bar Conference (first week of June) where she is set to examine the Bar’s culture ahead of the publication of the independent report into bullying and harassment at the Bar.
More generally the conference will aim to get to grips with the perennial problem of overwork and overload with about a third of barristers now struggling to cope. “Heavy workloads, long hours and emotionally demanding cases mean barristers are often under tremendous pressure,” says the Bar Council.
One possible solution is ‘reflective supervision’ on which a Bar Council has set up a working group lead by Charlotte May KC. Whether this technique can really make a difference remains to be seen.
“Bar Conference is the one opportunity in the legal calendar where we can all come together to discuss the issues affecting our profession and the sector more widely, from ethics and wellbeing to the future of public inquiries,” said Bar Council Chair Barbara Mills KC
“2025 is the ‘year of the review’, not only for the criminal justice system but for the Bar too. Baroness Harman’s review will provide the profession with recommendations which will pave the way for real change.”
Perhaps a surprising addition to the conference programme is a keynote presentation by top-rated statistician Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter FRS OBE who will discuss how failing to appreciate statistics’ limitations can have profound legal and human consequences. No doubt he can figure it out.
New Chief Executive for the City of London Law Society
Patrick McCann has been announced as the next Chief Executive of the City of London Law Society. Well known in the City for a career which has embraced positions at Bird & Bird, Berwin Leighton Paisner, and Herbert Smith Freehills his most recent role was as global Director of Learning at Linklaters.
“One of the main aims of the CLLS is to demonstrate the positive impact our members have on society generally and the economy in particular, with the hundreds of thousands of transactions and disputes we deal with every year,” said Colin Passmore, Chair of the CLLS. “Patrick’s appointment will ensure that we continue this work as he brings enormous energy and experience to the role of Chief Executive, backed by a track record of building relationships across our sector and driving collaboration between City law firms. I am looking forward to working alongside Patrick when he takes up the reins, and am confident in his hands that the CLLS will continue to drive positive change, continue to leverage the fantastic work our member firms do, and continue to deliver positive value for the City and beyond.”
High points of achievement for McCann in this area have been the Social Welfare Solicitors’ Qualification Fund, which has already raised £1.2 million to help 120+ aspiring social welfare lawyers qualify; City Century, a coalition of 50+ law firms supporting solicitor apprenticeships; and TheLLP!, a transformational development programme for queer-identifying emerging legal leaders.
Commenting on his successor, the CLLS’s retiring Chief Executive Matthew Rous said, “I can think of nobody more capable to hand over the reins to than Patrick. He has been the dynamo behind some of our most impactful campaigns in recent years, as well as an inspirational Chair of our Training Committee.“
So he should look good.
A Model Work Experience Programme for Aspiring Lawyers
If you want to give under-represented communities a real insight into what it means to be a lawyer then give them work experience.
That’s the idea behind the SMILE programme (Social Mobility Insight into Law Experience) which was run by Birketts last month across all its offices. Working with its seventeen partner schools across London and East Anglia the firm offered year 12 (or equivalent) students the chance to take part in a week-long work experience programme designed to widen access to the legal profession.
There were scores of applicants of whom just under a quarter were selected with the unsuccessful being offered an online CV and interview skills workshops.
At the start of the programme, students completed a comprehensive induction to give them an insight into what they would be undertaking while teaching them the soft skills required in an office environment.
They then completed two seats during the week, gaining direct experience by working with fee earners from many Birketts teams including Family, Employment, Corporate, Dispute Resolution, Real Estate Finance, Regulatory and Corporate Defence, and more. Meanwhile their afternoons involved taking part in legal workshops – from core practice areas to niche ones – as well as business services workshops, and interview and CV skills workshops.
“Our SMILE programme has seen rapid growth, quickly becoming a standout initiative in our commitment to widening access to the legal profession,” said Lizzy Ferguson, Early Careers Officer in the HR team at Birketts,
“This year’s programme was a resounding success, delivering invaluable insight and inspiration to students from underrepresented backgrounds. We’re proud to share that 100% of participants said they would recommend the experience to a friend. The firm have been fantastically supportive of SMILE and we are hopeful to grow the offering again next year.”
Kennedys IQ Takes on Risk in the Insurance Business
The frontiers continue to expand in the application of data to legal processes thanks to this week’s announcement of a collaboration between Kennedys IQ and Solomonic on the further development of AI in the insurance space. This reflects a growing demand for integrating external data to support underwriting, claims, and compliance functions so that clients gain a better understanding of risk throughout the insurance lifecycle.
By combining together Solomonic’s litigation data and Kennedys IQ’s proprietary ‘event detection’ algorithms and policy wording analysis, underwriters can now analyse risk in a ‘transparent and explainable way’.
The result, Kennedy IQ says, should be ‘robust outputs’ and the firm already has a track-record for innovation including for its work in partnership with University College London, Manchester University, RiskCovered and Havas which was part-funded by Innovate UK
“We’re thrilled to partner with Kennedys IQ and expand the use of our data into domains where its value can be harnessed,” said Peter Nussey, CRO, at Solomonic. “Collaboration and continued innovation with a focus on practical use cases of the platform’s data, will continue to empower new clients to drive greater impact within their businesses.”
Solomonic is an award-winning and intuitive litigation analytics company which prides itself on analytical rigour, data integrity and innovation so as to promote ‘actionable intelligence’. Kennedys IQ SmartRisk was launched a couple of months ago and is the newest addition to the IQ platform.
LEGAL COMMENT OF THE WEEK
TOPIC: The M&S IT Hacking Crisis
COMMENT BY: Jessica Bass, Partner, Oury Clark Solicitors
“It is vital that M&S maintains clear and open communication with all employees during this time, so they understand what is happening and why these steps are necessary. HR will need to manage the situation carefully, ensuring staff are reassured and kept up to date. The last things any business wants is for employees to learn information from the press, before hearing it directly from their employer.
Ultimately this is going to have a financial impact on the business and could lead to a need for cost-cutting measures. It is important for M&S to keep its employees in mind, be communicative and reassure them throughout the process. If employees are ready, willing and able to work, then the general rule is they should still be paid, subject to their specific contract. Obligations to agency workers will be different but after 12 weeks agency workers normally gain additional rights. It should be clearly explained to all staff what they should expect.
This is a good time for M&S to remind employees of its policies generally when it comes to data protection, and demonstrate good practice. If employees are locked out of their emails, M&S needs to make sure they are contacted through some other means so that they know what’s happening, and how long it is likely to go on for. However, it would be wise to limit any communications on personal devices to simple updates such as when their systems will be restored and remind them of their confidentiality obligations generally.”
TOPIC: The Standish vs Standish divorce case in the Supreme Court in which the status of a previous transfer of funds from husband to wife is under consideration.
COMMENT BY: Amy Radnor, partner at Farrer & Co
“Standish is a case about the super wealthy, but unusually it’s also a case where the principle involved is relevant to everyone.
“The case is all about ‘matrimonialisation’, in other words, how and in what circumstances non-marital assets can become marital assets. This is important because the sharing principle applies to marital assets – opening the door to a 50% share upon divorce – but not to non-marital assets.
“The circumstances in Standish are unusual – during the marriage, the husband transferred investments worth £77m, which he had obtained before the marriage, into the wife’s sole name. This was done as part of a tax planning scheme. The issue, now that the couple is divorcing, is whether the act of putting the investments into the wife’s name ‘matrimonialised’ them to the extent that they are now marital assets in which the wife is entitled to a share on divorce.
“The implications of this case are extremely wide-reaching. For example, the court’s decision could affect anyone who puts an inheritance from before the marriage into a joint bank account because it gets a better interest rate or transfers a pre-marital flat into joint names because it’s easier to remortgage. If you divorce, should the court look at whose legal name the asset is in, or at the history of where the asset actually came from and why it ended up in that person’s legal name in the first place?
“This is a point with the potential to affect a huge number of outcomes, so family lawyers are awaiting the Supreme Court judgment with great interest.”
COMMENT BY: Nick Gova Partner and Head of Family, Spector Constant & Williams
“This case highlights the long-term legal and financial implications of gifting or transferring substantial assets between spouses during a marriage. While such transfers may be driven by tax or estate planning objectives, they can later become central to disputes in divorce proceedings.
“The Supreme Court’s decision could clarify whether a gift made within marriage — even for the benefit of children — should be treated as a marital contribution or as a separate arrangement. The outcome may have significant implications for couples who structure their finances in this way, particularly where large sums or trusts are involved.”
TOPIC: Meta’s warning this week that European users could face a “materially worse” experience following the regulatory decision by the European Commission over its “consent or pay” model
COMMENT BY: Luke Dixon, Partner and Head of Data, Freeths
“Meta needs to take care with its comments that the decision will result in a materially worse service for EU users. It is currently discussing the “consent or pay” model with the UK Information Commissioner for viability in the UK.
Whilst the Digital Markets Act (DMA) is not UK legislation, it does enshrine data protection principles that the UK has retained following Brexit. This includes free and valid consent.
The UK Information Commissioner has been clear that a “consent or pay” model is potentially lawful but only if a business still provides an equivalent core service to people who do not consent. Whilst Meta can offer perks to users who consent, it cannot serve up a degraded service to those who do not. This is likely to increase the power imbalance with Meta and its users and torpedo the validity of the user consent.
With Meta’s latest financials beating Wall Street expectations, perhaps it has bandwidth to consider solutions that balance revenue-raising with information rights of its users. This could include setting lower fees for accessing its service without personalised advertising.”
TOPIC: Next week’s special hearings of The Infected Blood Inquiry(7-8 May 2025) focusing on the timeliness and adequacy of the Government’s response to compensation
COMMENT BY: Des Collins, senior partner, Collins Solicitors and adviser to some 1500 victims of the infected blood scandal
“Sir Brian Langstaff’s willingness to reopen the Inquiry to hear evidence on the workings of the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme (IBCS) speaks volumes of his commitment to the infected blood community as well as the welter of complaints and concerns he has heard on the issue of compensation.
We have submitted our experience of the shortcomings of the scheme and the frustrations of our clients, both those who have been invited to apply for compensation already and those (the majority) who are still waiting. These include:
- A lack of meaningful consultation on the workings of the scheme and the regulations that govern it
- A complete lack of transparency on the criteria being used to invite people to apply for compensation:
- A lack of proactive information about the availability of free legal advice to those whose claims are in process
For many reasons, therefore, the compensation process is causing significant distress and anxiety to many of our clients. The hope they had last May that finally their suffering would be recognised and that they would receive justice has not come to pass. In fact, for the majority their experience is that little has changed in the obfuscation and delay tactics and disingenuous Government behaviour they became used to for so long.
We and our clients sincerely welcome Sir Brian’s attempt to improve the situation. Speed and scale of delivery needs to be addressed, as well as tone and feel for the community at large. There is no magic fix at this point however. So it will be very interesting to see if his spotlight and intervention helps.”
TOPIC: The prospective burdens on employers arising from the Government’s new Employment Rights Bill: especially regarding ‘zero hours’ reform
COMMENT BY: Charlie Barnes, Head of Employment Legal Services, RSM UK
“While the government has taken a sensible step in not banning flexible contracts completely, there are still grave concerns from the hospitality and retail sectors already struggling with national insurance and wage cost increases. If the bill is implemented in its current form, the general consensus is that this will lead to a reduction in hiring as employers look to offset increased administration costs and take a more cautious approach on recruitment.
“The harsh reality is that this could even lead to less opportunities for those who value or rely on the flexible nature of casual work. Unfortunately, those employers trying to do the right thing will find themselves burdened with increased administration, and an obligation to provide work for a set number of hours, even where the need isn’t there. This will ultimately drive up prices and push employers to consider other ways to plug labour gaps, eg. offering more overtime to existing workers, or turning to automation and new technologies where possible, rather than hiring more people.
“Businesses fully support the need to protect vulnerable workers from exploitation, but are looking for a more flexible approach to the rules and more certainty on how they will apply in practice. The legislation as drafted leaves much open to interpretation, which is no good for anyone, and will instead add to an already unsustainable workload for employment tribunals. As it stands, retail, leisure and hospitality employers already struggling in the current economic environment, following April cost rises and the impact of tariffs, will bear the heaviest burden.”
APPOINTMENTS OF THE WEEK
JENNER & BLOCK
Will Jones, a solicitor-advocate (above), is joining Jenner & Block LLP in its Public Law and Crisis Management Practice in London. He will also be a member of the firm’s Global Hearing Preparation Practice as special counsel.
Jones has extensive experiences representing clients in many of the UK’s major public inquiries, including most recently the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, the Thirlwall Inquiry, and the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry. His expertise lies in advising clients on complex legal and regulatory challenges, in particular in the areas of public law, public inquiries, public procurement, and crisis management. He also been involved in handling commercial disputes especially in highly regulated industries, such as the healthcare and life sciences, technology, media, financial services, and defence spaces.
As a fluent Spanish-speaker Jones has enjoyed secondments at a leading pharmaceutical company and at the Madrid office of a global law firm. He has also had pro bono practice representing NGOs, charities and advocacy groups on issues ranging from child refugees’ rights to the legal impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children and young people.
WEDLAKE BELL
Clarissa Levi is joining Wedlake Bell as an Art & Heritage Consultant in its Art & Luxury and Private Client teams.
Previously with the BHL Art Group, where she was Director of Tax, Heritage Law and Cultural Objects, Levi’s career includes eleven years at Sotheby’s, where she was a Senior Director, and positions at Charles Russell Speechlys and Allen & Overy, where she trained.
She is a member of a number of leading professional organisations, including the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, Professional Advisors to the International Art Market, the Art Lawyers Association, and the Heritage Group of Professional Advisers.
Levi’s practice spans a wide range of art and heritage matters, including advising on the ownership, acquisition, and disposal of art and cultural assets, accessing tax incentives for heritage property, and navigating the UK’s export controls for cultural objects. She has particular experience advising on estate planning involving art and heritage objects and has recently advised on complex offers in lieu of tax under the Acceptance in Lieu Scheme, tax-free private treaty sales, and Conditional Exemption claims.
Added to her legal skills Levi is also a published writer, lecturer, and broadcaster, and works as a Heritage Consultant with Arts Council England. She is widely recognised for her ability to ‘Combine legal rigour with deep sectoral knowledge and practical insight’.
GROSVENOR LAW
Ben Wolfe (above) has been promoted to Partner at Grosvenor Law as part of a programme of strengthening the firm’s depth of expertise in dispute resolution services. Specialising in complex, high-value disputes, Wolfe has extensive experience advising international businesses and high-net-worth individuals on matters involving asset tracing, trusts and allegations of fraud and breach of duty. His appointment reflects his significant contribution to the firm’s practice since joining Grosvenor Law in 2011.
Commenting on his new position Wolfe said, “Having first walked through the doors of the firm as a paralegal, I have experienced first-hand the growth and development of Grosvenor Law and am delighted to have been appointed as a Partner. I look forward to continuing to fight for our clients in some of the UK’s most complex and high-stakes disputes, and witnessing the firm’s continued growth and success.”
Also promoted at this time are Ganesh Nanwani and Adam Kelman to ‘Of Counsel’ and ‘Managing Associate’ respectively.
We hope that you’ve been interested or amused by something in this week’s LEGAL DIARY. If so do send on to colleagues.
And please continue sending your ‘Diary-type’ stories, insights legal comment and appointments to
fennell.edward@yahoo.com
Meanwhile we hope you enjoy a sunny week-end!