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Mixing it up

15 March 2013 / Roger Smith
Issue: 7552 / Categories: Opinion , Human rights
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Diversity has been a popular topic with the profession, notes Roger Smith

No doubt as to the legal theme of the last month: diversity and difference were to the fore.

Hale & in great heart

Lady Hale did not reach her position as the sole woman at the top of the judicial tree without a degree of steel in her soul. So, no surprise that she let a fellow justice of the Supreme Court have it with both barrels in her Kuttan Menon Lecture. Lord Sumption had argued in his Bar Council lecture of November last year that the gender imbalance of the superior courts would be corrected only by the effluxion of time. He conceded that this was not ideal but it was inevitable, given the overwhelming requirement to appoint “on merit” (the statutory requirement) and the scarcity of suitably qualified women candidates.

Lord Sumption accepted, interestingly enough, that women have a unique experience of the world that would be useful in judicial determination. However, it was wrong to argue “because

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Writing in NLJ this week, Victoria Rylatt and Robyn Laye of Anthony Gold Solicitors examine recent international relocation cases where allegations of domestic abuse shaped outcomes
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
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