Employment Tribunal decisions now available online

Earlier this year, Employment Tribunal decisions were put online for the first time. Before this, to read a judgment you had to apply in writing to the Tribunals Service in Bury St Edmunds and enclose £10 to cover costs!

Selected decisions from before 2017 are available, though it's not clear if and when more decisions will be added retrospectively. Although ET decisions are not binding on subsequent cases they give an interesting insight into how tribunals deal with legal issues and often provide a detailed account of the facts of the case. 

Interesting both for those studying employment law, and for employees/employers everywhere!

The EU (Withdrawal) Bill - what it says and the issues it raises

I've previously posted about Mark Elliott's Public Law for Everyone blog and having just read his 1000 words entry on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill thought that it was worth linking through to this particular post. As a non-lawyer I found it easy to understand. The author has also put together a more in-depth analysis of the Bill which is also written in an accessible way (but required me to concentrate a bit more!). Highly recommended for anyone who wants to find out more about exactly what is going on. 

Celebrating the Centenary of Women Lawyers - an exhibition at Lincoln's Inn

This exhibition is hosted by Lincoln's Inn in partnership with First 100 Years and is running because 2019 will mark 100 years since the passing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act which removed any legal barrier to women working as lawyers on the grounds of their sex. 
To mark the exhibition's launch on Wednesday 19th July there will be a drinks reception at Lincoln's Inn. Tickets are free, but registration is required.

Woman's Hour series on women's lives after leaving prison

Recently Woman's Hour broadcast a series in which Milly Chowles interviewed women at different stages of their lives after leaving prison.

The interviews are each around 10 minutes long and give an interesting insight into the challenges of life after release.

14th June: Sarah 
16th June: Pat 
20th June: Yvonne  
21st June: Roberta 

Also of interest:
19th June: Jenny Earle from the Prison Reform Trust talking about the increase in the number of women in prison. 
23rd June: Rhona Hotchkiss, Governor of HMP Cornton Vale 

Birkbeck staff and students can access the content via Box of Broadcasts National

Once logged in, search for the public playlist Leaving Prison:

The relevant Woman's Hour episodes are listed, with the starting point of each interview highlighted in the playlist description:

Regulatory & Guidance materials on Westlaw UK

Accessible via the Legislation or Current Awareness tabs, Regulatory and Guidance materials on Westlaw UK provide additional information on how the law is implemented or interpreted in practice. 
The materials include Practice Directions, Guidance Notes (from 1995), Command Papers and Consultation Papers. 
It's possible to browse by document type or source, or to search on a particular subject. Try it out next time you're in Westlaw. 

LawPORT: open-access training resources from IALS Library

Launched today, LawPORT (Law Postgraduate Online Research Training) is a collection of free-to-use online training resources designed to improve the information literacy skills of law PhD students. The tutorials have been created by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Library to support researchers across the UK with public international law research and the use of OSCOLA.

Although targeted at PhD students, these online tutorials are likely to be useful to students studying at all levels - particularly the one on OSCOLA.

The three training resources are:

•   Citing references using OSCOLA

•   Researching customary international law

•   Treaties and international conventions

Law in Action - interview with governor of HMP Edinburgh

I've previously flagged up Law in Action, and it's worth subscribing to podcasts from the series. 

Rather belatedly I've recently listened to the last episode from the most recent series entitled 'Joshua Goes to Prison' in which the presenter, Joshua Rozenburg visits Edinburgh Prison and speaks to the governor, Caroline Johnston about how she and her staff are managing the challenges of operating a prison in the 21st century. The prison is involved in some interesting initiatives, including employing a Throughcare Support Officer, a prison officer who works both inside and outside the prison itself. The officer's sole purpose is to work with short-term prisoners in the run up to release and focus on helping with issues relating to areas such as housing, employment prospects and addiction support. The officer then remains in contact post-release and continues to offer support.

Definitely worth a listen if you're a criminology student, and/or are interested in the penal system.

NB If you're a Birkbeck student, or member of staff and are reading this post after the episode has disappeared from BBC iplayer, then you can listen via our subscription to Box of Broadcasts National