Law Society of England and Wales

So yes, again, more probing questions around that subject are being asked.

I mean, you may have well seen yesterday or this morning, the Law Society have just released a new practice note on using AI in the legal practice.

Within that, it talks about professional indemnity insurance and cyber insurance and how AI could impact on both policies.

There's definitely, it's certainly going to have an impact on PI and cyber.

know

by purchasing runoff um so yes there is there is more activity i think uh in the market the moment around the consolidation and and closure um you know i don't like to see it because some of these law firms have been around for you know hundreds of years you know some if not more

I was at the Law Society AGM last week and there was an impassioned voice from the floor from a law firm owner saying that, particularly if these Kolkhofer reforms come in, which are currently on hold, that if they came in, they would have to close their firm.

and cited the runoff cover that that would be, you know, tens of thousands of pounds.

This was the International Bar Association of Human Rights Institute.

the Bar of Human Rights of England and Wales, the East Africa Law Society, the International Commission of Jurists, the Law Society of England and Wales, the Pan-African Lawyers, and number seven, Lawyers for Lawyers, all of them a Netherlands grouping.

All of them, these seven law society groupings, put it on record.

that what had happened in Zambia was unacceptable in a democracy.

Welcome to the Law Society Gazette

podcast.

Unpacking what matters most across the legal profession.

Hello, I'm Paul Rogerson, editor of the Law Society Gazette, and welcome to the latest Gazette podcast.

So how was it for you? John Healey's first budget, or should I say Andy Burnham's first budget, was heavily trailed following the PM's portentous promise to end 40 years of neoliberalism.

But the response so far has been pretty muted.

But enough of the cynicism.

There's plenty in the small print of the red book to detain lawyers, as usual.

Today, I'm very excited to interview Mark Evans.

He's the current president of the Law Society of England and Wales and has an incredible life journey and is really a great example of a servant leader, I must say.

I had the absolute privilege of meeting Mark when he came to Toronto for the IBA, the International Bar Association Conference.

I had the chance to run in his running group early in the morning.

it's great to join you today and a real pleasure to catch up

Absolutely, absolutely.

And I had just mentioned briefly about your experience now as the president of the Law Society of England and Wales.

But I know your journey began in a very different setting.

Now bear in mind, I was at a Bowen Layton and it was a good Jewish firm.

I'm not Jewish, but the firm was, and I, Remember on one occasion I was invited to Birmingham to the Law Society conference, whatever it was, and there was a plenary session.

And I stood there and said, look, if this is how much work we do, Flick, this much is of value.

There I am on the front page of the Law Society Gazette giving a Hitler-style salute with my fingers just visible underneath.

Oh, wow.

Well, well, well.

And he turned to the client and said, I suggest you find yourself another lawyer.

And no doubt that word got reported to the Law Society.

So it's so sort of, I mean, that was a little bit of an aside story, but these are the sort of things that the AI will question them and say, well, is it ethical? I mean, sometimes it might be useful, say, to just check a spelling of a word or what's another way of saying something? But if you want to really learn, and this came out very well in the class that I taught, that if you really want to learn something, you've got to do your own research and you've got to make sure that the tools you use are good tools, not just take the first thing and see it.

It was a good class actually.

Well, human rights? No, we want to get rid of that.

The Law Society said changes to limit the retrospective effect of quashing orders would have a chilling effect on judicial review.

The government has been at the legal system for the entire time that it's been in office.

Attacking activist lawyers.