Whisky Tango Foxtrot

Quite what Andy McNab would have made of the fiasco in eastern Libya is anyone’s guess, and, given the reluctance of our Special Forces to disclose any information at all, we are unlikely to hear very much more.

What is astonishing is how very 19th century it all seems.

A Chinook (if it was a Chinook – it may just be that that is the stock image the BBC uses when a large helicopter is involved) is not a gun boat, but the idea of sending an armed diplomatic party to parlay with the natives (without telling them first) is so very Empire.

And a “serious misunderstanding” (William Hague in the House of Commons) a perfect example of diplomatic language.

A legal education

Loved this from a somewhat snide article in the guardian.co.uk, Making the would-be barristers of tomorrow face harsh realities of today

Undergraduate students to a large extent have unformed minds,” hit back Cambridge University professor Christopher Forsyth. “There is a danger of teaching them to advise before they have a mastery of conceptual thought.”

Same goes for quite a lot of lawyers.

And as for the jaw-dropping comment from City Law School associate dean Susan Blake,

The law is an attractive profession. And a success rate of one in 10 is a hell of a lot better than you get with the lottery

she clearly missed out on being taught by Professor Forsyth.

Blair Take 2 (Friday)

Richard Norton-Taylor excellent in guardian.co.uk this evening on new evidence from Lord Goldsmith: Chilcot inquiry: Blair shut me out says former legal chief, Lord Goldsmith

I was particularly struck by,

The document contains a handwritten note by [Sir David] Manning [Blair’s foreign policy adviser], warning: “Clear advice from attorney on need for further resolution.” Blair scrawled in the margin: “I just don’t understand this.”

Didn’t get it then, doesn’t get it now, probably never will.

And as for Lord Goldsmith, read the late Tom Bingham’s analysis in The Rule of Law, pages 120 – 129.

A new year of birding

Lured by reports of Bitterns and Harriers, yesterday saw us at Exminster Marshes. Having asked Caroline to park a little closer to the edge, I got out of the passenger door, took a couple of paces backwards and one leg went into the ditch up to my thigh. What I had thought was firm ground was in fact dead reeds over nothing. And I had to clutch at a bank of stinging nettles to haul myself back up. It was not a very auspicious start: and I squelched around for the next hour. It wasn’t that I was cold (I was) but felt such a plonk (plus was quite shaken).

And the birding? Well, no Bitterns, and the Harriers, one Marsh and one Hen, had been sighted but had dropped down, out of sight, about 30 minutes before we arrived. But a Kingfisher, wildfowl everywhere, and the lady Smew preening on the canal. Not a bad trip at all.

Exminster Marshes: early afternoon, New Year's Day 2011

Countdown to a new dispensation

An interesting piece in this morning’s FT by Jane Croft, Legal firms set for ‘Tesco law’, based on a recent survey by Smith & Williamson on whether, and to what extent, the top 100 law firms will use the deregulation of the legal services sector to raise external finance.

What is clear from this survey is that the top end of the legal market is preparing to take advantage of the Legal Services Act and, if the rumour mill is to be believed, so too are the external providers – whether Tesco, the AA etc. None of this is surprising.

But what about the “squeezed middle”? (Not mentioned by Smith & Williamson).

In my previous Lawslot Redux post, now six months old, I said that in the hurly-burly of practice it is sometimes difficult to take time out to think about what may be needed. I might also have added that the current economic environment is making fee earning work an imperative (no time for posts).

Yet as Giles Murphy of Smith & Williamson notes,

The provision of legal services will change radically in the next five years with consolidation, external capital, new entrants and mergers with other professions; those who are best prepared will be in a strong position to take advantage.

He is talking about using external finance to develop and grow faster than your rivals. And competitive advantage may be obtained in any number of other ways – but I am not convinced that the profession as a whole has yet come to grips with what the Legal Services Act will actually mean for us day-to-day. It is going to be an interesting run up to October.