Brexit fallout for legal profession

Law reform will “go on the back burner” as Brexit issues monopolise government time, lawyers have said.

As the fallout from the Leave vote continues, with markets in chaos and sterling at a 30-year low against the dollar, litigation reforms are likely to stall. According to NLJ columnist Professor Dominic Regan, of City University, “the disruption will inevitably impede the reform process”.

“While some changes will be implemented, bolder measures such as the abolition of damages for soft tissue injury are drifting into 2018.”

Writing in NLJ this week, consultant editor David Greene, senior partner at Edwin Coe, says: “With [Michael] Gove leading the Brexit campaign, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has been in shut down for some months.

“That seems likely to continue until someone takes over in the coming weeks. Thereafter the MoJ will be full tilt on the machinations of leaving the EU. This may affect the proposed reforms in personal injury litigation, the Briggs reforms, and the Jackson proposals on fixed costs. It may also put onto the back burner any change in the regulatory regime for solicitors which is under review.”

Meanwhile, the outlook for the legal profession is sunny in the short term, with a post-Brexit “substantial upturn in business for lawyers” predicted several months ago by the Law Society, “to be followed by a downturn as international businesses moved operations to the EU capitals,” writes Greene.

“Gordon Nardell QC in discussions with the All Party Parliamentary Committee in April talked of the ‘legal bonanza’ following a Brexit vote. A study by Oxford Economics verifying the longer term loss estimated it at 4% per annum by 2030 or £1.7bn per annum.”

Lawyers have also pointed out that the referendum is not legally binding.

Doughty Street Chambers’ Geoffrey Robertson QC has said MPs could block the UK’s exit by refusing to repeal the European Communities Act 1972.

Rufus Ballaster, partner at Carter Lemon Camerons, says: “Given the lack of ability to see the nature of the exit, another vote (parliamentary, general election, Scottish and/or Northern Irish, or a fully blown ‘this is the way we could exit so are you sure’ UK wide referendum), could pull the country back from the brink.”