Roger Smith reports on legal developments at home & away
Three stories from three continents this month: two relating to the frontiers of the future and the third a throwback to more unfortunate times.
Law Society Legal Aid Conference
The Law Society’s reputation among legal aid practitioners has not been of the highest in recent years. Des Hudson’s exit as chief executive was, of course, hastened by an ill-advised strategy of cosying up to government. The Society’s annual legal aid conference has not, perhaps in consequence, been the highlight of many legal aid practitioners’ recent years. However, its 2016 edition was, to be fair, rather good. My sense was that, having been hit for six, legal aid practitioners were beginning to regroup and that this was reflected in some of the contributions to the conference. For me, the best speakers were two in the last session. One was Corry van Zeeland from The Netherlands. She talked about how the Dutch Rechtwijzer (now rebranded ReWire) project that is developing offshoots in British Columbia, MyLawBC, and here in England and Wales with Relate. She demonstrated slides from the
