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NLJ this week: Unlikeable clients

28 May 2021
Issue: 7934 / Categories: Legal News , Profession , International justice , Legal services
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Should lawyers choose clients that match their own beliefs? They should not, says John Gould, senior partner at Russell-Cooke, in this week’s NLJ.

He refers to the furore around David Perry QC accepting work from the Hong Kong Department of Justice earlier this year. Perry later bowed out. But what about the cab rank rule? And a lawyer’s independence from their client?

Gould writes: ‘Barristers are “hired guns”. It is not necessary (or even desirable) that they express anything but the position of their clients. They argue and represent others for money. They are not soldiers in their own country’s cause.’

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Arc Pensions Law—Ian D’Costa

Arc Pensions Law—Ian D’Costa

Pensions firm welcomes legal director in London

Shakespeare Martineau—Jonathan Warren

Shakespeare Martineau—Jonathan Warren

Real estate disputes team strengthened by London partner hire

Morgan Lewis—Christian Tuddenham

Morgan Lewis—Christian Tuddenham

Litigation partner joins disputes team in London

NEWS
Government plans for offender ‘restriction zones’ risk creating ‘digital cages’ that blur punishment with surveillance, warns Henrietta Ronson, partner at Corker Binning, in this week's issue of NLJ
Louise Uphill, senior associate at Moore Barlow LLP, dissects the faltering rollout of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 in this week's NLJ
Judgments are ‘worthless without enforcement’, says HHJ Karen Walden-Smith, senior circuit judge and chair of the Civil Justice Council’s enforcement working group. In this week's NLJ, she breaks down the CJC’s April 2025 report, which identified systemic flaws and proposed 39 reforms, from modernising procedures to protecting vulnerable debtors
Writing in NLJ this week, Katherine Harding and Charlotte Finley of Penningtons Manches Cooper examine Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26, the Supreme Court ruling that narrowed what counts as matrimonial property, and its potential impact upon claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975
In this week's NLJ, Dr Jon Robins, editor of The Justice Gap and lecturer at Brighton University, reports on a campaign to posthumously exonerate Christine Keeler. 60 years after her perjury conviction, Keeler’s son Seymour Platt has petitioned the king to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy, arguing she was a victim of violence and moral hypocrisy, not deceit. Supported by Felicity Gerry KC, the dossier brands the conviction 'the ultimate in slut-shaming'
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