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04 December 2019
Issue: 7867 / Categories: Legal News , Profession
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Pinto sets out 2020 agenda for the Bar

Access to justice, to a career at the Bar and to international markets will be the priorities for 2020, Bar Chair Amanda Pinto QC has said in her inaugural speech

Pinto, of 33 Chancery Lane, specialises in high-profile money laundering, corruption, insider dealing and other financial wrongdoing cases.

Addressing an audience in Middle Temple this week, she expressed concern at the growth in paid McKenzie Friends ‘who are unregulated, untrained and yet demand money for their intervention’.

Pinto said she would support moves to increase access to the profession ‘for everyone who is good enough, no matter who you are or where you come from’. Practical steps would include improving the ‘fair distribution of briefs’ and making it ‘normal to have a balanced home and work life at the Bar’. She hit out at flexible operating hours in the courts, which are ‘anathema to those with caring responsibilities’. She also promised to continue to press for English law to be the jurisdiction of choice for businesses around the world.

Issue: 7867 / Categories: Legal News , Profession
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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Cripps—Radius Law

Cripps—Radius Law

Commercial and technology practice boosted by team hire

Switalskis—Grimsby

Switalskis—Grimsby

Firm expands with new Grimsby office to serve North East Lincolnshire

Slater Heelis—Will Newman & Lucy Spilsbury

Slater Heelis—Will Newman & Lucy Spilsbury

Property team boosted by two solicitor appointments

NEWS
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Secondments, disciplinary procedures and appeal chaos all feature in a quartet of recent rulings. Writing in NLJ this week, Ian Smith, barrister and emeritus professor of employment law at UEA, examines how established principles are being tested in modern disputes
The AI revolution is no longer a distant murmur—it’s at the client’s desk. Writing in NLJ this week, Peter Ambrose, CEO of The Partnership and Legalito, warns that the ‘AI chickens’ have ‘come home to roost’, transforming not just legal practice but the lawyer–client relationship itself
A High Court ruling involving the Longleat estate has exposed the fault line between modern family building and historic trust drafting. Writing in NLJ this week, Charlotte Coyle, director and family law expert at Freeths, examines Cator v Thynn [2026] EWHC 209 (Ch), where trustees sought approval to modernise trusts that retain pre-1970 definitions of ‘child’, ‘grandchild’ and ‘issue’
Fresh proposals to criminalise ‘nudification’ apps, prioritise cyberflashing and non-consensual intimate images, and even ban under-16s from social media have reignited debate over whether the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023) is fit for purpose. Writing in NLJ this week, Alexander Brown, head of technology, media and telecommunications, and Alexandra Webster, managing associate, Simmons & Simmons, caution against reactive law-making that could undermine the Act’s ‘risk-based and outcomes-focused’ design
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