THE UH STUDENT LAW SOCIETY
PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES - FEBRUARY / MARCH 2010

Tuesday 23rd February 2010 (1 CPD point*)
(5.00pm for 5.30pm, UH St Albans Campus, 7 Hatfield Road, St Albans AL1 3RR)
‘Asylum, Gender and Human Rights'
Debora Singer
Policy and Research Manager at Asylum Aid, a registered charity providing advice and legal representation to asylum-seekers and refugees


Thursday 4 March 2010 - N.B. TO BE CONFIRMED

(5.00pm for 5.30pm, UH St Albans Campus, 7 Hatfield Road, St Albans AL1 3RR)
‘According to the Text ...Technology and the law'
Dr Paul Wernick
Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire

Thursday 11th March 2010

(7.00pm for 7.30pm, UH St Albans Campus, 7 Hatfield Road, St Albans AL1 3RR)
Student Law Society / Amnesty International Play
‘Journey Through Thorns: A Personal Story of Courage, Vision and Hope’
Written and presented by Mohamed Altawil, David Harrold and Sylvia Pepper
This event will take the form of a dramatised reading with video clips, slides and music. It is the story of Mohamed Altawil’s early life and aims to give some personal insights into what it has been like to be a Palestinian in Gaza, not just in recent months but over the past few decades.

N.B. The venue for all of the above events will be the UH School of Law, 7 Hatfield Road, St Albans AL1 3RR. Each lecture in St Albans will be preceded by free tea in the Refectory of the School. Admission is free and open to the public. UH staff, students and alumni as well as sixth form students and members of the legal profession are particularly welcome to attend. As each event is subject to possible change or delay (especially if the speaker is a Parliamentarian), it is advisable to contact the School of Law in advance to confirm that the relevant event is going ahead. For further details, please contact Lorraine de Souza (Tel: 01707 286203; Email: uhlaw-cpd@herts.ac.uk).

* 1 CPD point will be available to any solicitors who attend. The School of Law's SRA CPD Reference is LT:UHER.

Mock trial at St Albans Crown Court

Sam Stockwell (LLB yr 2) and Rosie Tackley (CPE) delivered closing speeches in the Crown Court in front of HHJ Griffith. Rebecca Gore (LLB yr 3) and Baldeep Namas (LLB yr 1) delivered closing speeches in front of HHJ Gullick. The resident judge, HHJ Baker also watched proceedings and gave the students valuable feedback. All three judges, the barristers at the Bar and the jury who watched the trial made particular reference to the speeches, commending the students on their performances.

Stephanie Kwan (LLB yr 2), Agnes Bekker (LLB yr 3), Lawrence Pearce (LLB yr 1) and Oyeyemi Bankale (LLB yr 2) undertook training as court clerks and court ushers prior to the trial and should also be commended for their performances in court. In fact, HHJ Baker was so impressed with Stephanie's performance as an usher that her offered her a job as a court usher in the vacation period.

Many of the students came away with mini-pupillages and offers of marshalling judges at the Crown Court.

The university would like to thank the students for all the hard work that they have put into this mock trial and for their professionalism when representing the University.

Well done!

UH Law School Hammers Cambridge

On the 18th December 2009 UH Law Students Reecca Gore and Terra Dugdales taught cambridge studetns a lesson on how to moot. Please do not think that that is an exaggeration,this view was fully supported by the judge's comments at the end. Further, it should not be seen as a surprise even if it is Cambridge, particularly with the two students concerned, our students have regularly shown that they can more than compete against the perceived 'better' universities. In giving his decision the judge, a senior barrister with 15 NBS chambers, was full of praise for our students and genuinely felt they can look forward to successful careers ahead of them.

The UH Student Law Society presents a public lecture entitled...

'THE SECOND WALL STREET CRASH - THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES'

Speaker: Larry Elliott, Economics editor of the Guardian newspaper and co-author of The Gods that Failed: How the financial elite have gambled away our futures*

Date: Tuesday 1st December 2009

Time: 5.00pm for 5.30pm

Venue: School of Law, UH St Albans Campus, 7 Hatfield Road, St Albans AL1 3RR

Admission is FREE and open to the public. Pre-registration is not necessary. Pre-lecture refreshments will be available.

Legal aid lawyers paid less than sewage workers: Law Society says NO to more fee cuts

As new report finds legal aid lawyers paid less than sewage workers, Law Society says NO to more fee cuts.

Solicitors who provide legal aid services are among the worst paid in the public sector according to a recent survey.

The average salary of a legal aid solicitor is £25,000, less than a prison officer or sewage plant worker. It is also well below police officer, nurse and secondary school teacher according to figures compiled by the Guardian newspaper.

In light of the recent Ministry of Justice Consultation that plans to slash fees for legal aid, the Law Society says ‘enough is enough’.

The Law Society has expressed grave concern over the ‘Legal Aid Funding Reforms’ consultation paper, slamming its absence of economic rationale or analysis behind the proposals. The Law Society believes this is yet another onslaught on a fragile legal aid system, already subject to countless cuts, and another nail in the coffin of access to justice.

Law Society Chief Executive Desmond Hudson says:

"There is no scope left for cutting fees. These figures show that solicitors undertaking legal aid earn well below the average for professional salaries, and considering solicitors can amass significant student debts and work very long hours, the pay is very far from fat cat territory."

Solicitors undertaking legal aid work show commitment to providing access to justice for those that need it most, and many more offer up a great deal of their time working for free with pro bono work for those who are ineligible for legal aid."

Thread-bare

The Law Society believes any cuts to this thread-bare system will see firms no longer able to undertake this work, civil provision in mixed practices being hit, and the most vulnerable clients unable to obtain the assistance they need.

Notably, the salary of senior civil servants is nearing £70,000- almost three times higher than a legal aid solicitor while the median public sector pay is almost £3,000 higher at £27,686.

Ends

Notes to editors

Journalists can contact the Law Society of England & Wales Press Office on +44 (0) 20 7320 5764.

www.lawsociety.org.uk/mediacentre>

The Guardian's statistical breakdown can be found here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tD4F8x73jNXTW3Q-uhrRm9g

A full public sector pay scale report from the ONS can be viewed here:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=1944