Drift towards policy making that makes sense (Guardian)
More legal firms are dabbling in thinktanks and policymaking but they may be
overlooking the benefits of more academic study, says Alex Aldridge
Recently some of the biggest names in law have been getting together in an
office on Chancery Lane to discuss weighty legal issues until late in the
evening. "It's a bit like being called up to play for England," says criminal
barrister John Cooper QC, one of 14 members of the invitation-only legal
thinktank Halsbury's Law Exchange ? set up last summer by legal publisher
LexisNexis.
It is the latest example of a slow-burning trend among practising lawyers to
involve themselves in policy, dating back to 1992 when City law firm Clifford
Chance launched its "public policy unit". The move was followed by rival DLA
Piper ? whose EU public affairs team is led by the deputy PM Nick Clegg's
wife, Miriam Gonzalez ? before last year Allen & Overy unveiled a Global Law
Intelligence Unit, concerned with the development of international commercial
law.
As you might expect from bodies closely affiliated to commercial
organisations, much of their output is self-serving. Clifford Chance's
tracking of the recent European court case over the use of ...
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