You know those times when checking the to-do list doesn’t calm you down?

That.

So in lieu of a calm considered post (or even in lieu of a lengthy and time consuming but ill considered ranty post) please accept the following offerings:

Contempt: Don’t be in it to win it. You’d think that journalists that do reporting for a living would have a clue about what contempt of court is and what they can and can’t report. Goodness, I know nothing about criminal law but even I can work out that tweeting the name of a member of the jury in a high profile tax evasion trial is probably not a great idea. And I don’t think you have to be a lawyer to work out that reporting the evidence of a witness given under oath while the jury was not present is also a bad idea. So bad in fact that said journalist has been reported to the AG (yes this is a real story not hypothetical). And the jury in the Harry Redknapp trial have been discharged. Not a great start for the new era of in-court tweeting. On the up side, through this article I found two other great articles on the Legal Week website about contempt of court: Avoiding Contempt of Court : Tips for Tweeters and Bloggers by @Adamwagner1 and What Not to Tweet – A Lawyer’s Guide by John Bloor. (h/t @inner_temple). Perhaps the lady in this article should have read those articles before she face booked her way into clink (well, at risk of clink anyway).

And in other news: “Litigants in person could struggle to secure access to justice“. Not really news you might say, but a really interesting article nonetheless. As is this guest post on Richard Moorhead’s blog by a US judge, who shares his excellent tips on how to deal with the self represented – different law, universal problem it seems. Also travelling well is this post by Bluegrass Family Law about aggressive lawyers. I agree with the sentiment.

Of particular interest to me, as a mum of a boy due to start school within North Somerset in Sep 12, is the Serious Case Review Report in respect of the Nigel Leat case (N Som Safeguarding Children Board) . It does not fill me with confidence. The basic failures in Child Protection procedure within a school run under the auspices of my own Local Authority is quite shocking.

Jonathan James writes about an interesting case about judges meeting subject children: AJ v. JJ and others [2011] EWCA Civ 1448. He also writes about the recent Daily Mail article by a mum who is hostile to the idea of her ex’s new partner being involved in her child’s life that has generate over 1200 comments. Probably best if I let him deal with that one: *Ma’am. Please step aWAY from the article*.

And that concludes my ramble.

I’ve ticked “do blog post” off my list.

Next up: “finish draft grounds of appeal”.