This week’s Queen’s speech has been described as a “mouse of a programme” but last year’s speech contained a raft of new measures to transform the justice system and keep both the legal profession and civil libertarians very interested. Twelve months on this is what has happened to them. Read the full story

Last week the Law Society, the Legal Services Board and the Ministry of Justice published the results of a research project into the supply of legal services by solicitors’ firms.

The report – ‘A time of change: solicitors’ firms in England and Wales’ – is the culmination of what claims to be one of the largest ever surveys. Based on a sample of 2,007 firms, the report reveals how solicitors’ firms of all types are performing, in the context of recession, market changes, regulatory developments and legal aid reforms. Read the full story

It was the need to keep US security agencies onside and to prevent a repeat of embarrassing disclosures about the torture of UK citizens that led to the acceleration of plans to expand secret hearings into civil courts. A Justice and Security bill has already been introduced in the Lords and will be pushed through parliament this session. Read the full story

You may feel that the Lib Dems have little influence on government policy but don’t expect justice secretary Ken Clarke to agree with you. For the second time on the specific subject of inquests they have forced him into a burning rubber U-turn. Read the full story

Weighing in at just under eight minutes, last week’s Queen’s speech has been generally regarded as lightweight. But it contained a raft of new measures to transform the justice system and keep both the legal profession and civil libertarians very interested. Read the full story

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill bounced back to the House of Lords on Monday for consideration of Commons’ amendments. Members of the Lords voted eight times during the debate, and in scoreboard terms, the result for the government was played 8, won 4, lost 3, with one sort of score draw. Read the full story

The legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders bill suffered 11 defeats in the House of Lords, far more than the controversial NHS reform bill that was recently signed into law.

The bill came back to the House of Commons on Tuesday, and the government announced that it was prepared to accept three of the amendments but would seek to disagree the other eight. It has agreed to accept that the new director of legal aid casework should be independent; that legal aid should be preserved for appeals to the upper tribunal, court of appeal or supreme court in welfare benefits cases; and to amend the bill’s definition of domestic violence. Read the full story

Having already forced nine amendments during the report stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill, peers inflicted further damage on the legislation at the third reading stage of the bill on Tuesday.

Baroness Grey-Thompson (Crossbench), the former paralympian, put down an amendment opposing government plans to save £6m a year by removing as many as 6,000 children from entitlement to legal support. She said: “If the Bill is left as it stands, legal aid for around 35,000 children every year will continue, but legal aid will not be available for around 6,000 children under 18 who would qualify if the current rules remained in place.” Read the full story

The ninth and tenth days of line-by-line consideration of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment bill brought the Committee stage in the House of Lords to a conclusion last week.

In general the pattern was the same as the first eight days of the Committee stage. Subjects discussed included bail, remand, electronic monitoring, life sentences, early release, a new women’s justice strategy commission, youth cautions, offensive weapons and squatting. In all, over 200 amendments have been considered during the ten days. The only amendments agreed were those proposed by the government, a raft of technical and textual amendments. All the other amendments were either not moved or were withdrawn after debate. Read the full story

A fortnight ago the Government signalled that it was abandoning controversial clause 12 of the Legal Aid bill that would have introduced means testing for initial advice and assistance at the police station. Now it looks as if further concessions could be on the way.

Having suffered heavy defeats in the Lords over the welfare reform and health service bills, the government appears eager to avoid further embarrassing reversals. As reported in the ‘Guardian’, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly, addressing a Westminster Legal Policy Forum meeting, said that the government continues to Read the full story