THE Lord Chancellor has still not managed to rid himself of his formal regalia — as he no doubt hoped when plans to scrap his ancient office were announced. But the costume he sports on the Woolsack clearly still has its uses. At a recent charity dinner to raise funds for China for Labour, Charlie Falconer auctioned a pair of his tights: the very ones, he said, that he wore when the provisions for a new supreme court were going through the Lords. They raised £450. And who paid this princely sum for an item of Charlie’s underwear? None other than Nikki Gavron, London’s deputy mayor. Should one wonder what she plans to do with them?
THE Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, has agreed to look at what should happen to householders who exceed “reasonable force” when tackling an intruder, possibly killing them. At present they can be charged only with murder. But Lord Ackner, the retired law lord, has argued that the charge in such cases should be manslaughter — a recommendation of a series of committees in recent years after the case of Private Lee Clegg, the soldier convicted in 1990 of murder when he killed a teenage girl in Northern Ireland troops fired on a stolen car. The conviction was quashed in 1998.
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THE College of Law has just done a “branding” exercise: this means it spends large amounts of money to consultants Red Spider to be told what it probably already knew about its image. So what is it? Nigel Savage, chief executive, was rather chuffed to learn that when people were asked which actor most closely embodied the image of the college, the UK’s largest training institution for lawyers, they came up with Helen Mirren. “I think it suggests gravitas, respectability and sex appeal,” Savage enthused.
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LORD WOOLF can retire content when he decides to hang up his wig. As a result of changes to the Constitutional Reform Bill, the independence of the judiciary has been entrenched in the “concordat”, an agreement he hammered out with the Lord Chancellor. “Particular credit” must go to the House of Lords which has proved a “remarkably effective revising chamber”, Lord Woolf said last week in his James Kingham tenth memorial lecture at the University of Hertfordshire. “I am a much happier man than I was when that announcement was made in June 2003,” he said. But he’s not complacent. “I earnestly hope that I remain happy.” Unsurprisingly his speech got no coverage: it was issued on the day the Prince of Wales’s engagement was announced.
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ANOTHER reminder that a memorial service is being held next Monday for Allan Levy, QC, the children’s lawyer who died last year. It will be at 5.30pm at Inner Temple Hall. When we first mentioned this a couple of weeks ago we blundered and so would like to offer our sincere apologies to Ian Boardman, the senior clerk of Levy’s chambers, 17 Bedford Row. Inexplicably, we bestowed his distinguished title on one Max Thorowgood — and of course he’s simply a barrister. How could we? Sorry, Ian.