A Lawyer Talks

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comAfter months of uncertainty, the government is pressing ahead with its plans to curb the right to trial by jury in England and Wales. Legislation is to be introduced “next month”, a minister says. Sir Brian Leveson expects the government to publish its bill even sooner, he tells me in this week’s episode of A Lawyer Talks.The former head of criminal justice was talking to me about the second and final part of his report on the criminal courts, which recommends no fewer than 135 efficiency improvements. But inevitably we spent much of the interview discussing the structural reforms Leveson had recommended in part one of his review last July.The most eye-catching of these is a new bench division of the crown court, which will try cases without a jury. Leveson thought it should consist of a judge and two magistrates but the government says it will be a judge sitting alone.He was careful not to comment on the government’s proposals — or indeed on whether ministers might let magistrates sit in the bench division if concessions have to be made in the House of Lords. But Leveson was perfectly happy to tell me why he stood by his original recommendations — those that ministers had accepted and those they had not.My column for this week’s Law Society Gazette looks at how Leveson’s initial proposals were handled by the government. It also reports how he feels about the government’s decision to remove a defendant’s right to choose jury trial on charges that can be tried in the magistrates’ court. He would have limited the right to elect trial by jury rather than abolished it outright.Pieces I write for the Gazette are always free to read. The Gazette also carries a two-page analysis of Leveson’s latest recommendations by Monidipa Fouzder.My weekly podcasts are a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comThis year will be a tipping point in which the majority of the legal industry will be AI-powered, a leading solicitor said in a comment released for publication this week. But what does that mean?Is artificial intelligence going to take over from the real thing? Will lawyers no longer be needed?“We predict that AI will create a huge dividing line between small, innovative firms that use it to rapidly accelerate and more traditional firms who choose to remain set in their approach,” explained Jonathan Waters, who founded Helix Law as a boutique litigation practice nearly 15 years ago.But what will the clients make of it? They may associate AI with non-existent cases cited by hapless lawyers or career-ending errors made by law enforcement chiefs.To find out, I invited Waters to join me on A Lawyer Talks. His answers were both surprising and reassuring.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can listen a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comAs the High Court begins hearing allegations today that the publishers of the Daily Mail hacked into phones used by the Duke of Sussex and other public figures, I thought it would be a good time to look at the most successful phone hacking operation ever carried out by law enforcement organisations in the United Kingdom and across Europe.Between 2016 and 2020, drug dealers and others involved in organised crime were using what they believed to be a secure messaging service called EncroChat. The system was cracked as a result of work by the Netherlands Forensic Institute. As a result, nearly 40,000 smartphones were infiltrated by the authorities and some 2,200 offenders were convicted in the UK alone. But although courts in England and Wales found ways of declaring the evidence admissible, prosecutions were far from straightforward because the law does not allow material intercepted in the course of transmission to be used in evidence. Without intercept material, prosecutors have to rely on phone hacking — so-called “equipment interference” — to dig out stored data. But that’s not something the agencies like to talk about.Among those calling for intercept evidence to be admissible is Professor Peter Sommer, an academic specialising in digital forensics, cyber security and electronic communications. In a recent paper, he drew on his experience as an expert witness in criminal prosecutions to explore some of the problems now facing the courts.You can hear Sommer outlining his concerns — and explaining how EncroChat was cracked — in this week’s episode of A Lawyer Talks. My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can listen a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comReducing the availability of jury trial is neither principled nor pragmatic, the incoming chair of the bar argued last night. In her inaugural address, Kirsty Brimelow KC said her first priority was to lead the Bar Council’s opposition to planned Ministry of Justice reforms.She said:The constitutional principle is deep — with its importance being cemented in 1670 when Edward Bushel and his fellow jurors, a disinterested group of property owners, would rather have gone to prison than convict the Quakers Penn and Mead of causing tumultuous assembly by preaching in Gracechurch Street…The pragmatic points are that the reduction of juries would have no impact on the existing backlog as it would take effect towards the end of this parliament. Impact even then is highly uncertain. Meanwhile energy and focus are drained from implementing the urgent reforms now that would decrease the backlog.You can hear Brimelow outlining her priorities in the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks. As well as criminal justice reform, we discussed increasing the age of criminal responsibility; lawyers under attack; bullying and harassment at the bar; human rights; and violence against women and girls. I was particularly interested in Brimelow’s experience of witchcraft.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comGibraltar’s senior police officer was “in effect… forced out” of his job in 2020 as a result of assertions by the British overseas territory’s acting governor Nick Pyle and the chief minister Fabian Picardo KC that they had lost confidence in him, an inquiry by a retired British High Court judge has found.In a 700-page report published by the Gibraltar government on 23 December, Sir Peter Openshaw said he had no doubt that the real reason Picardo had lost confidence in Ian McGrail, the police commissioner, was that the Royal Gibraltar Police had obtained a search warrant against Picardo’s friend, James Levy KC, which the chief minister was “determined in one way or another to thwart”. Levy denied any wrongdoing and was never charged.Picardo had misled the police authority, the inquiry found: “by suppressing the truth, he was in effect suggesting a falsehood”.Openshaw said that although McGrail realised his position had become untenable after the governor and chief minister had lost confidence in him, he retired only because he believed he was being unfairly and unlawfully compelled to do so. He felt he was being put under improper pressure to alter the course of a live criminal investigation.The former judge found that Picardo had behaved grossly improperly when he tried to interfere in an active criminal investigation. But when Openshaw’s report was published two days before Christmas, Picardo announced that he had been vindicated and the Gibraltar government had been exonerated.The chief minister said:Crucially, the report completely exonerates the government from the many spurious allegations made against it. I am also very pleased that the inquiry chairman has found that I genuinely believed the then commissioner of police lied to me. My reading of the report, therefore, is that it vindicates my position on this crucial issue. Most of the barristers who took part in the inquiry are based in London. McGrail was represented by Adam Wagner KC from Doughty Street Chambers (pictured at the inquiry). On the latest edition of A Lawyer Talks, he told me about the inquiry’s findings and gave me his reaction to Picardo’s comments.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comWith parliament and many of the courts not sitting, I can’t promise to publish a report every day over the next two or three weeks. But I don’t want 2025 to fade away without marking the 25th anniversary of White v White, a groundbreaking ruling from 2000 in which the UK’s most senior judges said that the division of joint property on the break-up of a marriage should be checked against the “yardstick of equality”.The judgment was hugely influential but not widely reported at the time — perhaps because the lawyers concerned, and their clients, didn’t speak to journalists. But times change and earlier this month I went to interview Mrs White’s solicitor at the offices in Lincoln’s Inn where his firm — Payne Hicks Beach — has been based since 1770. On the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks, Simon Beccle told me about Pamela White and the irony of her victory a quarter of her century ago.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comIn its report earlier this month on the collapse of a high-profile Chinese espionage case, parliament’s joint committee on the national security strategy found evidence of questionable decision-making, misaligned expectations and failures to take potential opportunities that could remedy problems. “Some aspects are best described as shambolic,” the report added. “The government and Crown Prosecution Service must reflect… on how best to uphold public confidence in the integrity of the system in the face of public concern.” Ministers have until 3 February to respond.In the meantime, I have been discussing the committee’s findings with Nick Vamos, a former head of special crime at the Crown Prosecution Service and now head of business crime at the law firm Peters & Peters. As you can hear in the latest edition of A Lawyer Talks, he was surprised at how badly his former employers had handled the case. Vamos explained how the CPS had got it wrong — even though we still don’t understand why.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comPeople respond to outcomes rather than reasoning, the deputy president of the UK Supreme Court told me last week. Lord Hodge was reflecting on the reaction to the court’s ruling in the For Women Scotland case, where he gave the leading judgment.“We decided the question of statutory interpretation,” he explained, “and have left it to others to work out the consequences. And of course the Equality and Human Rights Commission has the unenviable task of giving guidance on this matter.”The court delivered its ruling in April and the commission’s guidance has still not been approved by ministers, much to the frustration of its former chair Baroness Falkner of Margravine.In the course of a wide-ranging interview for A Lawyer Talks, Hodge told me why he thought former judges should not comment on matters of political controversy. But he regarded it as acceptable to talk about the rule of law. I had to weave my way carefully round the restrictions but in the end I had a much better understanding of what the UK’s second most senior judge thinks about the great issues of the day, across the UK and beyond.And since Hodge is not planning a formal valedictory speech when he retires at the end of this month, I took the opportunity to ask him for his reflections after 12 years in the Supreme Court — and his unique transformation into an English lawyer.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comWe still don’t know why leaked government plans reported on Tuesday of last week — “juries will decide only murder, rape or manslaughter cases” — were so different from what ministers announced this Tuesday.It turns out that jury trial will be retained for cases where the likely sentence is over three years and for all indictable-only offences. Examples given by the government include murder, manslaughter, endangering life, rape and other penetrative sex offences, aggravated burglary, blackmail, kidnapping, people-trafficking, rioting, terrorism offences, grievous bodily harm with intent, the most serious drug offences and some weapons offences.So there are two possibilities: either the leaked document seen by other reporters was not an accurate account of the government’s plans or it was correct at the time it was circulated and ministers then modified their ambitions. When I interviewed the courts minister Sarah Sackman MP on Wednesday, I asked her which it was. On the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks, you can hear how she answered. I also took Sackman through detailed plans set out by the justice secretary in a written ministerial statement on Tuesday. During the interview, I began to understand why David Lammy had told MPs that we would have to wait until the next general election, due in 2029, before we could expect to see a fall in the crown court backlog.I analyse Sackman’s account of the government’s wide-ranging plans in my latest column for the Law Society Gazette.In my column, I also argue that public involvement in the criminal justice system should not be regarded as an immutable absolute. Putting it another way, I am not convinced by those who claim that we can substantially reduce the current unacceptable crown court delays without making significant structural changes. If you disagree, listen to Sackman and then add a comment below.Lammy’s statement should be read in full. For convenience, I have extracted the half-dozen proposals that I asked Sackman to explain or justify:* Magistrates’ courts’ sentencing powers will increase to 18 months, with provision to extend to 24 months if necessary to relieve pressure in the crown court.* The right of defendants to elect for a jury trial will be removed, meaning that it will be for the court to determine where a case will be heard based on the severity of offences.* The appeals process from magistrates’ courts will be reformed so that automatic appeals to the crown court in criminal cases are replaced with a permission stage, limited to points of law.* A new bench division will be established in the crown court for triable-either-way cases with likely sentences of three years or less, heard by a judge alone.* Jury trials will remain for indictable-only offences and cases with likely sentences over three years.* A small number of serious, but particularly technical and lengthy, fraud and financial cases may be heard by judge alone in the crown court, subject to certain requirements and at the discretion of the court.What emerges from the interview, it seems to me, is that there is still a lot left to play for.My weekly podcast — occasionally, twice-weekly — is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comPete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, violated security protocols and endangered troops by using a personal device to share sensitive operational details on the unclassified messaging app Signal, according to reports in the US media of a forthcoming finding.Meanwhile, Hegseth is apparently trying to distance himself from allegations that he ordered a second military strike on a boat carrying drug smugglers in the Caribbean, unlawfully killing two survivors of an earlier attack.For the past three months, US forces have been targeting small boats thought to be ferrying narcotics to countries in Latin America — from which they could reach the United States. More than 80 drug smugglers are said to have been killed when their vessels were hit by US missiles.Where does this leave Hegseth and the naval commander responsible for the operation, Admiral Frank Bradley? Are they responsible for breaches of international humanitarian law? Could they be charged with murder? And what effect has the incident had on relations between the US and the UK?These are among the questions I put yesterday to John Bellinger, former legal adviser to the US State Department during the George W Bush administration and now a senior fellow in international law at the US Council on Foreign Relations. We met to record the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks during his visit to London.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

Brexit has had an impact on everyone who holds a British passport but on none more so than those UK citizens who worked for the European Union and found themselves out of a job after the United Kingdom left the EU in 2020.It was therefore gratifying to see Middle Temple paying tribute to two senior members who had served in the EU courts by commissioning a painting of them. As you can see, it’s a custom that the inns of court have been following for centuries. This double-portrait is by Fiona Graham-Mackay.At a brief ceremony on Tuesday, Dame Eleanor Sharpston DCMG KC, who served as an advocate general at the Court of Justice for almost 15 years, and Ian Forrester KC, a former judge of the EU’s General Court, were introduced by Lady Justice Thirlwall, this year’s treasurer of Middle Temple.To listen to the brief speeches and see the painting being unveiled, just click the ► symbol on the image above. To watch in full-screen — which I recommend — click on the image and then click the appropriate symbol.A Lawyer Writes is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rozenberg.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comWhat is property? It seems a simple enough question. I own my clothes. But do I own my body, my ideas, my country? If I own my bicycle and it’s stolen, can I get it back by cutting the chain that the thief has used to secure it? My personal data may be better protected than my bicycle — but do I own it? And what about natural resources? Does anyone own them? Can private ownership bring public benefits? Are there limits on what we should own?These are among the profound questions that Professor Dame Sarah Worthington DBE, KC (Hon), FBA addressed in her Hamlyn lectures, delivered earlier this month. I asked her for some answers yesterday when we recorded this week’s episode of A Lawyer Talks.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comThe rule of law must be protected against further erosion, an all-party parliamentary committee warns us today. Failure to do so, says the House of Lords constitution committee, risks the rise of extremist political parties, ultimately creating space for dictatorship. I was one of many who gave oral evidence.My analysis of the committee’s report— called The rule of law: holding the line against anarchy and tyranny — will appear in tomorrow’s Law Society Gazette.For today’s episode of A Lawyer Talks, though, I interviewed the committee’s chair, Lord Strathclyde (pictured), at the House of Lords. The chimes you’ll hear in the background, I should explain, are not those of Big Ben; it’s the ubiquitous House of Lords annunciator system.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comCoCounsel is the name given by the content and technology company Thomson Reuters to its artificial intelligence assistant for legal professionals. But Pablo Arredondo, who developed its precursor with his colleague Jake Heller and then sold it to Thomson Reuters for $650m, is not so sure about the choice of name now. And while he fizzes with excitement at finding what AI can do, he is more aware than most of its limitations.Arredondo, who’s vice-president, CoCounsel, at Thomson Reuters, has a unique perspective as a successful lawyer and an award-winning technology developer. He spoke to me from California for the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comHugh Mercer KC has sat as the UK judge at the European Court of Human Rights for little more than a month. But there will be a general election in less than four years’ time and two major political parties are seeking to have Judge Mercer kicked off the court before he completes his nine-year term of office. Does he still think applying for the post was a good career move?That was one of the questions I asked him last week when we met to record the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks. It was no surprise to find that Mercer thinks the UK should remain signed up to the human rights convention — which celebrates its 75th anniversary tomorrow — but some of his reasons were not what I had expected.We also discussed a claim in May by nine Council of Europe members, led by Italy and Denmark, that his court’s rulings had made it too difficult for them to deal with what they described as irregular migration. To what extent could the judges take account of the mood among European nations when deciding cases of this sort?Being the most junior member of the 46-judge court, Mercer was naturally cautious. But as someone who was on the other side of the bench until recently, his response was particularly interesting.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comDemocracy is under challenge in the west, a former president of the Supreme Court told me this week. Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, who was the UK’s most senior judge from 2012 to 2017, said the level of disappointment in governments — almost across the Western world — seemed to be pervasive and increasing. People were turning to populist alternatives and, he added, populism tends not to respect the rule of law.Neuberger (pictured) gave me a wide-ranging interview ahead of a lecture he is delivering at the Old Bailey tonight to mark the launch of a series of events called Justice for All. He will be considering the rule of law and its place in a fair and functional society.“Improving the rule of law ultimately comes down to political will and the appointment of strong ministers with real commitment and experience,” he says in his lecture. How, I wondered, could we encourage ministers to do what was right? That, he replied, was a very good question.You can hear how Neuberger tackled it in the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks. My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comA former diplomat who served at the British embassy in Beijing has cast doubt on what’s thought to have been a major allegation in the failed prosecution case against two men who were accused of spying for China. Professor Kerry Brown, a leading sinologist who would have been called as a defence expert if charges against Chris Berry and Chris Cash had not been dropped, thought it was entirely implausible that Cai Qi, a member of the standing committee of the Chinese Communist Party politburo, had arranged to meet Berry at a restaurant in eastern China and then been kept waiting for 40 minutes because of traffic delays.Brown was speaking to Ken Macdonald (pictured) and Tim Owen for an episode of their Double Jeopardy podcast released yesterday. The two KCs suggested that Brown’s expert report, disclosed to the Crown Prosecution Service shortly before the trial had been due to open, might have persuaded the director of public prosecutions to drop the case.But, as Macdonald told me yesterday, that theory raises more questions than it answers. In an interview for A Lawyer Talks, I asked the former prosecutor about implications of Double Jeopardy’s double scoop.My own weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com“Politically motivated attacks on the legal profession are irresponsible and dangerous,” representatives of all 250,000 lawyers in the United Kingdom said this week. These attacks, they added, “weaken public trust and confidence in the rule of law and erode the very foundations of justice that underpin fairness and democracy”.In a joint statement, the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Law Society of Scotland, the Faculty of Advocates, the Bar of Northern Ireland and the Law Society of Northern Ireland said:Barristers, solicitors and judges have been subjected to violence, death threats and rape threats. Some have faced threats to their family members. We have repeatedly seen law firms and offices be set upon by protestors. We are deeply disturbed by this rising tide of intimidation targeting those who serve our justice system and uphold democratic principles.Lawyers should never suffer adverse consequences because they are identified with their clients or their clients’ causes. Lawyers are not their clients. Those who are unpopular or despised are still entitled to access the courts just as much as anyone else. Nobody is above the law, including politicians. Nobody is beneath the law’s protections.As the statement acknowledges, it’s not just the lawyers who have come under attack in the past couple of weeks. Judges are particularly vulnerable to ill-informed criticism from those seeking political advantage. For a unique perspective on the challenges now facing the judiciary I spoke yesterday to Professor Sir Ross Cranston, the only person alive to to have served in the legislature, the executive and the full-time senior judiciary of England and Wales. In a wide-ranging interview for A Lawyer Talks, Cranston discussed the themes of his new book, Judging, published this month by Oxford University Press. He made the case for a new offence of traducing the judiciary, which could be committed by those who make false allegations of corruption against judges online.My regular podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comThe Department for Business and Trade is currently reviewing the opt-out collective actions regime in competition law, a legal structure that enables consumers to claim compensation from corporations that are accused of abusing a dominant position in the marketplace. A recent example was the claim brought against Mastercard on behalf of up to 44 million consumers by the lawyer Walter Merricks, who discussed the outcome with me on A Lawyer Talks in May.Launching a consultation two months ago, the government said:We are committed to consumer protection and want to ensure that the regime has achieved, and continues to achieve, these objectives. This government is focused on economic growth; and a regime that is proportionate and focused on returns to consumers where they are due is good for growth and investment.However, we are aware of the potential burden on business that increased exposure to litigation can present. Finding the right balance between achieving redress for consumers and limiting the burden on business is essential to ensure that businesses can operate with certainty, whilst providing a clear, cost-effective, route for consumers.How should we calibrate the balance between corporations and consumers?Representing the consumers’ side is the Collective Redress Lawyers Association. It wants to ensure that people harmed through anti-competitive behaviour can secure compensation through the courts.Banging the drum for business is a group called Fair Civil Justice. It argues that collective actions in the courts should be a last resort, not the first port of call.Most cases settle. But how much of the compensation should go to individual consumers and how much to the lawyers and the funders without whom these cases would never get off the ground? Settling a class action originally valued at £14 billion earlier this year, Mastercard agreed to pay £200 million. But when the available balance is shared out, each consumer is expected to receive no more than £70 — and perhaps as little as £45.On the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks, I discussed these issues with David Greene (pictured), senior partner at the law firm Edwin Coe and a co-president of the Collective Redress Lawyers Association. He offered a robust — but not unqualified — defence of the legal regime introduced 10 years ago.My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol above.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.comIt would be “shame and a mistake” for the United Kingdom to leave the European convention on human rights, the UK’s former judge at the human rights court told me last week. Tim Eicke KC, who was elected to the court in 2016 for a nine-year-term, spoke to me from Essex Court Chambers, the barristers’ set to which he returned earlier this month. As the judge “elected in respect of Northern Ireland” — plus the rest of the UK — Eicke (pictured) said he was particularly concerned about the effect that withdrawal from the convention would have on the Belfast Good Friday agreement.He also referred to a report this month from the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, which examined how the human rights convention has been covered in the UK. According to the report — but contrary to the impression given by some media outlets — the human rights court had found against the UK in only 13 removal cases since 1980, just four of which concerned family life. In a wide-ranging interview for A Lawyer Talks, we discussed the government’s plans to limit the application of article 8 of the convention with the aim of deporting more illegal migrants. I also wanted to know why Eicke had applied for the Strasbourg job in the first place and the constraints it had imposed on his return to practice. And he explained why human rights judges from across Europe took such a close interest in the UK.My regular podcast series is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Non-subscribers can savour a taster by clicking the ► symbol above.