In this edition we feature the latest on the Delta variant in Hawaii, details on the HCBS funding proposal, and the outlook for Hawaii's hospital capacity.
By Chris Seel28 June 2021
Diversity and inclusion adviser
I lead the D&I team on disability and work with our Lawyers with Disabilities Division, supporting disabled people within and wanting to join the profession. I am responsible for our relationship with City firms, ensuring that the D&I aims of the new Solicitors Qualifying Examination are fulfilled. I am also organising our second virtual D&I conference with Leeds Law Society in September. My experience of legal practice and insights at the coalface have proved invaluable when working out how best to further the D&I agenda both in firms and in-house teams.
Dr Victoria Roper
Aassociate professor at Northumbria University and chair of the education and training committee at the Law Society
The Covid-19 pandemic has irrevocably changed our professional and personal lives. Since March 2020, solicitors have been working and supervising junior staff and trainees remotely.
The pandemic has changed the way we view working arrangements and as offices open up many firms and organisations are considering a hybrid model, with some form of remote working alongside time spent in the office.
We want to support our members through this transition, so we have produced guidance which sets out areas of good practice that firms and organisations should consider when deciding working arrangements, to ensure junior staff and trainees are appropriately supervised and supported when working remotely.
By Eduardo Reyes2021-04-30T10:32:00+01:00
The Solicitors Regulation Authority and its exam provider Kaplan have been accused of signalling to disabled people that they are not welcome in the profession, by barring the use of popular assistive technology products in the Solicitors Qualifying Examination part 1.
Candidates who routinely depend on specific assistive technology products could instead sit with an ‘amanuensis’ – a person who will read out the 360 questions and 1,440 multiple choice answers and input the candidate’s response. Extra time will be allowed for these candidates.
The prospect of assistive technology such as Jaws, Dragon and ClaroRead being barred from the exam has been criticised by the Law Society’s Lawyers with Disabilities Division (LDD), which first raised the issue with the SRA in 2017. LDD chair Jane Burton, who is also a member of the SRA’s SQE reference group, told the
Lubna Shuja
When the Law Society’s vice-president I. Stephanie Boyce and deputy vice-president Lubna Shuja succeed to the post of president, they will follow in the footsteps of some distinguished forebears. Samuel Garrett is one who comes to mind. A City solicitor and brother of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett, Garrett long argued for the admission of women to the legal profession. In 1919 he had the satisfaction of putting the motion to Council that, together with the Sex Disqualification(Removal) Act, opened the way.
There followed a long wait – not just to see a woman president of the Law Society, but even a single Council member. The latter, Eileen Evans, was elected to Council in 1977. Evans, the Gazette reported when she stood down in 1982, brought ‘common sense’ and ‘a feminine viewpoint which was particularly useful in the work of the subcommittee on Sexual and Racial Discrimination’.