All over the place there are notices up in robing rooms that ask us: have you ever thought of a judicial career? They are a bit like those “Your Country Needs You†posters, but without the moustache. For much of our careers the answer to the question, like so many questions posed on posters and advertisements, has been a pretty clear: “No, actually.†Being a judge seems so far away from what we do – being unnaturally quiet, not getting worked up about the outcome of the hearing, fooling about with your mates in the robing room and so on – that it appears to be an alien job, existing in a parallel universe to the court rooms that we inhabit.
Justin Bates revisits two cases concerning the Boundary Committee's actions when it advised on the move towards unitary authorities, and discusses a case clarifying the duty to provide accommodation to children under the Children Act
Ian Harris and Christopher Gutteridge review recent decisions on whether the prosecution can rely on hearsay evidence to remand a defendant in custody, claims for the return of property, and costs orders in criminal cases
Statutory demands, an invaluable method of debt collection in the current climate, can be set aside by application to the court, but this will only be granted under specific circumstances, says Verona Cocks
Premiums might go up, or they might not, but either way solicitors would benefit from putting in early and properly presented applications to their indemnity insurance provider and avoid last year's fiasco. Jean-Yves Gilg reports
Websites offering user-generated content that behave responsibly in relation to copyright infringement should be safe from court action – at least until there is further development in this area of the law, says Dawn Osborne
