Independent Drug Monitoring Unit

Law Society’s Gazette, May 1982

Letters to the editor

(There is a) widely held view that all solicitors, regardless of specialisation or geographical location, are ‘on the gravy train’. This view has been deliberately and successfully peddled for a number of years by certain sections of the media (principally by those on the ‘conveyancing monopoly’ bandwagon) and is now firmly entrenched in the public’s mind.

read more

'Solicitor, are you? I 'ad one of them law commissioners in the back of my cab the other day. You'll never guess what those stupid baskets - pardon my French - are up to now? They’ve only gone and launched a consultation on taxi and private hire services.

read more

Obiter had never understood why a bar president in France is called ‘le batonnier’ or ‘stick-person’. Unless it’s a reference to a slightly bigger version of a baguette called a ‘baton’, but that seems unlikely. And then enlightenment dawned when he met the president of the Paris bar, Christiane Féral-Schuhl (pictured), in London last week.

read more

Ex-justice secretary Jack Straw has earned more than a few bob since leaving office, as we first reported last week. But lest you got the wrong impression, the Blackburn MP’s extra-parliamentary activities have not been limited to worthy (if perhaps a tad prosaic) appearances in the Lancashire mill towns. Oh no. The agricultural commodity traders ED & F Man Holdings are also a favoured client, paying for Straw to break bread with the prime minister of Ukraine last September.

read more

A veritable army of grave-looking gentlemen in grey suits fetched up at the Royal Festival Hall last week for Russell-Cooke’s solemn event ‘Enforcing Regulatory Standards in a Liberalised Market’. Appropriately, the profession’s über-regulator, Legal Services Board chair David Edmonds CBE, topped the bill.

read more

The story of the man who left his wife his collection of (valuable) Dinky toys took me back to a tale of nude photographs.

Property dealer Clive Raphael apparently bequeathed his wife, the model Penny Brahms, a shilling and some revealing shots of her. It came to light in March 1970 when, two days after the date of the will, Raphael was killed in an air crash. He had left his fortune to his good friend, the talented, if raffish, barrister Ronald Shulman.

read more

Here’s one for the diary. On Monday 12 November, come to work prepared to doff footwear in public. Whatever the weather. Toes, ankles and soles are to be bared on the birthday of blind Chinese human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng.

read more

Would I Lie to You?, Charles and Eddie (pictured) once asked. Well, if they’d been singing to solicitors, there’s every chance it wouldn’t have mattered. The University of Central Lancashire has revealed that 95% of solicitors think they are better at detecting deception than they really are.

read more

Some lawyers run marathons. Naz Gauri, associate at Chadbourne & Parke’s London office, has just run six. In seven days. Across the Sahara.

He was taking part in the 246km Marathon des Sables (MdS) - a seven-day ultra-marathon which includes one extra-long day when the competitors run 81km, the equivalent of a double marathon. Did we mention competitors are completely self-sufficient, carrying everything from food to anti-venom pumps in their rucksacks?

read more

How much does an ex-justice secretary cost? This question may be of more than passing interest to Ken Clarke, as political seers believe a Cabinet reshuffle may be imminent which could see the wily Westminster veteran jettisoned.

read more