Equality

The billable hour rewarded time over talent & sacrifice over sustainability. Good riddance, says Ian McDougall

The long-predicted death of the billable hour may finally be here—and this time, it’s armed with a scythe. In a sweeping critique of time-based billing, Ian McDougall, president of the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation, argues in this week's NLJ that artificial intelligence has made hourly charging ‘intellectually, commercially and ethically indefensible’

The judiciary has set itself a trio of objectives and a trio of focus areas for the next five years, in its Judicial Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2026-2030

Comparators remain the fault line of discrimination law. In this week's NLJ, Anjali Malik, partner at Bellevue Law, and Mukhtiar Singh, barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, review a bumper year of appellate guidance clarifying how tribunals should approach ‘actual’ and ‘evidential’ comparators. A new six-stage framework stresses a simple starting point: identify the treatment first

Anjali Malik & Mukhtiar Singh consider the comparator question in discrimination claims

From gender-critical speech to notice periods and incapability dismissals, employment law continues to turn on fine distinctions. In his latest employment law brief for NLJ, Ian Smith of Norwich Law School reviews a cluster of recent decisions, led by Bailey v Stonewall, where the Court of Appeal clarified the limits of third-party liability under the Equality Act

In the month of self-improvement, Ian Smith tackles capability dismissals, notice period extensions, the meaning of ‘employer’ & a novus actus

The UK Supreme Court may be deciding fewer cases, but its impact in 2025 was anything but muted. In this week's NLJ, Professor Emeritus Brice Dickson of Queen’s University Belfast reviews a year marked by historically low output, a striking rise in jointly authored judgments, and a continued decline in dissent. High-profile rulings on biological sex under the Equality Act, public access to Dartmoor, and fairness in sexual offence trials ensured the court’s voice carried far beyond the Strand

Quieter court, louder consequences? Brice Dickson analyses the output of the Supreme Court in 2025

Bar campaigns will focus on protecting juries, legal aid and children’s rights in the year ahead with a working group already looking into the age of criminal responsibility, chair Kirsty Brimelow KC has said