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11 October 2024 / Roger Smith
Issue: 8089 / Categories: Features , Profession , Legal aid focus
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The reunion: 50 years on

192552
Roger Smith reflects on the radical vision that created law centres & left a lasting legacy

At the end of July, 70 septuagenarians crowded into a room in Gray’s Inn. Nothing very surprising about that. The Inns of Court are, of an evening, full of groups of old lawyers dining over talk of the triumphs and failures of their youth. But this lot were rather unusual. This was a meeting of those who 50 years ago thought of themselves as the spearhead of the popular radicalisation of the law. They were the survivors of the law centres established half a century ago. I was proud to be among them. I joined Camden Law Centre in the autumn of 1973.

Whether you could tell anything of the youth of the attenders by their current demeanour was an interesting question. Some had achieved an eminence of which they could barely have dreamed. I counted the digital or physical presence of three members of the House of Lords and at least half a

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NEWS
Cheating in driving tests is surging—and courts are responding firmly. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth of De Montfort Law School charts a rise in impersonation and tech-assisted fraud, with 2,844 attempts recorded in a year
As AI-generated ‘deepfake’ images proliferate, the law may already have the tools to respond. In NLJ this week, Jon Belcher of Excello Law argues that such images amount to personal data processing under UK GDPR
In a striking financial remedies ruling, the High Court cut a wife’s award by 40% for coercive and controlling behaviour. Writing in NLJ this week, Chris Bryden and Nicole Wallace of 4 King’s Bench Walk analyse LP v MP [2025] EWFC 473
A €60.9m award to Kylian Mbappé has refocused attention on football’s controversial ‘ethics bonus’ clauses. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Estelle Ivanova of Valloni Attorneys at Law examines how such provisions sit within French labour law

The Court of Appeal has slammed the brakes on claimants trying to swap defendants after limitation has expired. In Adcamp LLP v Office Properties and BDB Pitmans v Lee [2026] EWCA Civ 50, it overturned High Court rulings that had allowed substitutions under s 35(6)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980, reports Sarah Crowther of DAC Beachcroft in this week's NLJ

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