Introduction It is very common to see lawyers working for clients on a pro bono publico basis; that is, “for the public good”. Noonan J. has written that “[s]olicitors frequently provide pro bono help to their clients” (KBC Bank Ireland Limited v. Flyn …
Tarisai May Chidawanyika is a newly qualified solicitor and the founder of “Diversity in Law”, an organisation which seeks to promote diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. She is also the first Zimbabwean to be registered as a solicitor in I …
What can a new barrister like me learn from the mountains of what has been written about advocacy? Quite a lot, I think. A big theme you will come across is to ask: how listenable is your advocacy? Or, put in a way that refers to one of my favourite qu …
Although now 3 years in operation, the GDPR remains as much a mystery to many as it did when it was first introduced. Data protection has become particularly topical in the criminal law sphere as challenges to the manner in which the Gardaí obtain and …
(Originally published in Decisis Law Ireland in 2017) It is not often that judgments of the superior courts of any country go ‘viral’ online. They are normally written for, and read by, the legal teams in the case. Even where high profile cases are dec …
A new legal affairs podcast called Law on Trial has been launched by the Business Post. Law on Trial is hosted by Mark Tottenham BL, editor of Decisis.ie, and Peter Leonard BL, with Catherine Sanz, legal correspondent of the Business Post. The show wil …
Introduction It’s hard to recall the number of times I was told as a student to avoid legalese at all costs. I was advised that it only complicates reading and does little to impress an examiner. I’m sure many who read this will have had the same exper …
Gender equality in the workplace, in the family and in society more generally remains a much discussed and debated topic in Ireland, especially post-COVID when the general consensus seems to be that gender equality has been severely impacted by the pan …
Depending on who you ask, a “rule of thumb” is either a useful way of remembering an otherwise wearisome idea, or a phrase which harks back to an origin we might prefer to forget. Some years ago, in the long-running “On Language” column in the New York …
On the 28th of July 2021, the Criminal Justice (Perjury and Related Offences) Act 2021 came into effect, creating a statutory offence of perjury. Prior to its enactment, perjury was a common law offence without a clear definition or sentencing paramete …