Legal News April 2018

Legal

NEWS

APRIL 2018 THE MAGAZINE OF THE CONFEDERATION OF THE SOUTH WALES LAW SOCIETIES

Celebrating Success

At The CILEx Cardiff & South East Wales Annual Dinner 2018

LEGAL NEWS

CONTENTS PRESIDENT REPORTS

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Johnathan Hine

REGULARS

10 Chancery Lane News

FEATURES

12 A Sense of Self

A New Mission

14 Celebrating Success 6

Rachelle Sellek Full Spring Ahead!

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Mel Bevan-Evans All Change!

Editorial Board Emma Waddingham - Editor Michael Walters - Secretary Johnathan Hine David Dixon

Editorial copy to Emma Waddingham Email: emma@emmawaddingham.com

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Printed By Stephens & George The articles published in Legal News represent the views of the contributor and are not necessarily the official views of the Confederation of South Wales Law Societies, Cardiff & District Law Society, or of the Editorial Board. The magazine or members of the Editorial Board are in no way liable for such opinions. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure that the contents of this issue are accurate, we cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies or late changes. No article, advertisement or graphic, in whole or in print, may be reproduced without written permission of the publishers.

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PRESIDENT REPORTS

A NEW MISSION I trust you all survived the recent snow? February has a reputation for bad weather, but this year has been worse than I can remember for many years. Having struggled to get to Pontypridd County Court for a Trial on the Thursday of the red alert snow warning, it was disconcerting to be told the Court was being closed at 10.00am and we all had to trudge back home! Still, I cannot complain about two snow days thereafter, given that all public transport then ground to a halt.

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n previous columns I have commented on topical issues in the profession at large, mainly due to inactivity on the Presidential front. In this column I depart from that pattern to consider issues closer to home. Although the lack of formal activity continues, I have been fortunate enough to be invited to the CILEX annual dinner at the St. David’s hotel in Cardiff on Saturday 24 March 2018. I attended this event last year and had a thoroughly good time.

Consequently I am greatly looking forward to this year’s event. My thanks to the committee of CILEX locally for the invitation.

I have also been very fortunate to be invited to the Cardiff and District Law Society dinner on 27 April 2018, this year at the new Exchange Hotel in Cardiff Bay, formerly the Coal Exchange. This latter venue is both historic and iconic. I was immensely relieved when the hotel project went ahead and effectively preserved this piece of Cardiff history. I am greatly looking forward to that event and seeing the inside of the building for the first time.

An Exciting New Mission The above aside, there has been little further activity on the Presidential front. However, that can be seen as a blessing in many ways. It has allowed the committee of The Confederation to take a step back and consider the future of the organisation and its role going forward.

The landscape in which The Confederation has operated, for over 20 years now, has changed remarkably in that time. As an organisation we need to change with it, or go the way of the dinosaurs. As President Barack Obama succinctly put it in his first inaugural address: “For the world has changed and we must change with it.”

The Confederation began life, as I say, over 20 years ago. At its outset it united the local law societies of Cardiff, Rhymney Valley, Pontypridd and Rhondda, Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare and Bridgend. The brainchild of that redoubtable solicitor Roger Jones, former Law Society council member and its first Chairman (back in those halcyon days we had a Chairman and not a President!), Roger’s thinking was to attempt to unite the profession in South Wales into a more cohesive group that would have, thereby, a greater voice at a national level whilst also being local and accessible to its membership.

Additionally, The Confederation was to provide support to the profession in South Wales, fostering a strong commitment to equality in the profession locally at a time when such concepts were not as current as they are now.

Lastly, The Confederation should act as a vehicle for provision of relevant, timely and good value CPD training that was relevant to the needs and work of the profession in the South Wales area.

I was privileged to be one of the group that founded The Confederation all those years ago. With the exception of, I recall, two years away for family reasons, I have remained a committee member ever since. I was the first Treasurer of the organisation and retain that role today. I have been honoured to be President for the last three years. In all that time I have

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had the privilege to serve with some memorable Chairs/Presidents, Roger Jones being one of them. Then there was David Dixon, Simon Mumford and Gaynor Davies. All have given their unique input into the furtherance of the original dream. We were successful on CPD, though that market has changed somewhat in the last two years. Less successful though we may have been in the area of equality, this is a torch now taken up more vociferously by society and the profession at large. We cannot however be complacent about the continuing importance of this area and the continuing role The Confederation has to monitor this important issue.

However, times have changed and we must consider our continued relevance and role going forward in order to adapt and meet the current needs and demands of the profession in South Wales. Since its inception, we have been joined by the Monmouthshire Law Society as the organisation has expanded. I am keen to explore the fostering of further links with Swansea Law Society in future in order to further strengthen our membership and add additional weight to our voice nationally.

The committee of The Confederation has spent some time considering its role in the profession of today. Although CPD may have waned recently and the emphasis on delivery of training changed, other avenues are opening.

In that regard, the apt question “who and what is The Confederation and what is its future” is more relevant today than ever before. In considering this, I emphasise that The Confederation never set out to be and does not now pretend to be a substitute for local law societies. Far from it. Indeed, as a Confederation we are keen to foster renewed interest and enthusiasm in local law societies, working to support those that may be struggling to attract interest in their activities today.

We are keen to give support where we can to re-establish such societies and encourage local participation by the profession for the good of all lawyers locally. In doing so we believe that we will be able to create a louder voice for the profession in South Wales that will be a benefit to all lawyers in our area of operation. This can only be to everyone’s advantage.

In common with an examination of all aspects of our operation, we have also looked at changing the name of the organisation. The ambit of the Confederation membership is wide. It is open to all lawyers within the South Wales area and this includes Legal Executives, Students, Barristers and paralegals. We do not see a constraint on our class of membership as such, which leads to the obvious point that the name of the Society perhaps ought to reflect this by changing to ‘The Confederation of South Wales Lawyers’. No definitive decision has been made on this yet but it will be debated at our next AGM. I would encourage you to attend this event and contribute to the debate on the future of the Confederation. The AGM will be advertised through Legal News and will be held locally to allow as many as possible to attend.

Change is concept that does not sit comfortably with the majority of us, if

The Incorporated Law Society for Cardiff & District

annual general meeting ------------ notice ------------

we are entirely honest. Change for changes sake is debateable. However, change to adapt, to survive or more importantly to better serve the needs of your members should be applauded. It is against this background that we move forward. I sincerely hope that I can count on your support going forward and that you will join me on what promises to be an interesting, exciting and rewarding journey. l Jonathan Hine President OF THE Confederation of South Wales Law Societies JonathanH@jacklyndawson.co.uk

Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of this Society will be held at the Park House, 20 Park Place, Cardiff on Thursday 17th May 2018 commencing at 6pm.

The business to be transacted will include presentation of accounts for 2016, appointment of Officers and Council members and approval of special resolutions and reports.

Further details and a full agenda can be obtained from the undersigned.

Michael Walters Administrator 34 Ty Fry Gardens, Cardiff, CF3 3NQ DX 33029 Cardiff 1

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PRESIDENT REPORTS

FULL SPRING AHEAD! There’s much happening in Wales this month.

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n 1 April 2018, the first Welsh taxes for almost 800 years came into force in a landmark change to taxation laws. This was not an April Fool, the Welsh Land Transaction Tax (LTT) replaces Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) in Wales. Previously, SDLT was raised by UK Government and a rebate paid

by UK Government to Welsh Government to reflect the land transactions in Wales. From 1 April LTT rates will be set by Welsh Government who will have authority via the new Welsh Revenue Authority to collect the taxes and all proceeds will remain in Wales. In addition, and also from 1 April, the new Welsh Landfill Disposal Tax replaces UK Government’s Landfill Tax but it is the new LTT which has garnered most of the attention.

The new taxes reflect a further step along the devolution journey with Welsh Government taking much more control over its own affairs but also afforded CDLS the opportunity to hold a seminar with representatives from the Welsh Revenue Authority and the Land Registry. A fuller report of the seminar appears on our website (via the news page) but I’d like to pass on my thanks and congratulations to Delyth Williams for organising a fantastic event. We had over 100 people booked onto the event, over half of them non-members which reflected the level of interest in the new taxes.

The Commission on Justice in Wales has been established and is beginning its work. The Commission, chaired by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, has been set up to review the operation of the justice system in Wales and set a long term vision for its future. It is set to report in 2019. The Commission issued a call for evidence on 27 February inviting written submissions about justice in Wales which are to be made by 4 June 2018. Further information on the call for evidence can be found on the Gov.Wales website. In addition, Commissioners have begun a series of meetings with individuals in Wales to get their views on the challenges facing the legal services, sector, the contribution that the legal services sector is making to prosperity in Wales with particular emphasis on social cohesion and experiences of the justice system in Wales. I’d urge all lawyers to consider the Call for Evidence as the outcomes and recommendations from the Commission are likely to have some profound implications for the future whether that is in the implementation of any recommendations by Welsh Government or just the missed opportunity to do anything about some of the issues facing us.

Our Annual Dinner is to be held this month on 27 April at The Exchange Hotel in Cardiff. We have a new venue this year although I understand that it will not be the first time that the Annual Dinner has been held at The Coal Exchange. It was a big decision to move the venue this year as the dinner has been held at the iconic City Hall for many years. The glorious interiors of City Hall have provided a fantastic backdrop for our flagship event although it does have its downsides as a venue and we were adamant that if we were to change the new venue also had to have that sense of prestige, heritage and style. We didn’t want to move to an anonymous hotel function room and I am delighted that The Exchange Hotel has opened in time for us. The Exchange Hotel is formerly Cardiff’s Coal Exchange where coal was traded and the price of coal across the world was decided. It is also where the world’s first million pound cheque was signed.

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Our Annual Dinner will also be the setting for the presentation of our annual awards. We have three awards: The LPC Student of the Year, Junior Lawyer of the Year and the Simon Mumford Award. The LPC Student Award is open to full-time and second year part-time students at Cardiff Law School and is to be presented to the best performing student although the criteria is broader than just academic performance. The Junior Lawyer award is open to trainees and junior lawyers up to five years’ post-qualification.

Nominees are to be considered on the basis of their reputation, acumen, professionalism and commitment to clients amongst any other relevant factors. Last but not least is the Simon Mumford award, to be awarded to an individual for his or her outstanding contribution to the law and the legal profession. All our awards afford huge recognition to the winners (as well as great publicity to their firms) and I hope will reflect the excellence in the profession that we have in Cardiff & District’s legal community.

If you haven’t already got your tickets to the Annual Dinner they are on sale now via the events page on the CDLS website: www.cardifflaw.org.

It will be a fabulous evening with the opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues across the profession and this year we have secured Colin Jackson as our presenter for the evening. Great company, great food and entertainment – what more could you want? I hope to see as many of you there as possible as I come to the end of my year as President. l Rachelle Sellek President OF THE Cardiff & District Law Society yourvoice@cardifflaw.org

PRESIDENT REPORTS

ALL CHANGE! I am very pleased to let you know that my Inauguration took place on 8 February 2018 following the Annual General Meeting and I am now formally President of Monmouthshire Incorporated Law Society.

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cott Bowen is the Vice President and I am very happy that Kirsten Tuck and Ashley Harkus have both agreed to continue their Roles as Secretary and Treasurer respectively. Kirsten and Ashley have put a great deal of effort into developing the Profile of the Society as have Sarah Williams-Martin and of course Clive Thomas - without the assistance of these four people, running the Society would be very difficult and I am grateful to them for their promise of continued support during my term.

I was unfortunately unable to attend the recent Confederation of South Wales Law Societies meeting but I am pleased to hear that The Confederation is enhancing its mission and will continue its events; I very much enjoyed their End of Summer Ball last year!

Scott Bowen, Vice President of MILS has been particularly helpful already in assisting with regard to a speaker from the Law Society for the Summer Ball and I am pleased to say Mark Evans, Council Member for Cheshire and North Wales who is the current chair of the Wales Committee and has just been appointed to the Law Society’s Main Board will be saying a few words on the night. I anticipate a great deal of help from Scott too, which will also be gratefully received!

My nominated Charity for the year is Velindre Cancer Care and I have met with the Charity Organisers who are assisting me with a speaker for the evening. We are currently hoping for Nigel Owens but are awaiting confirmation as to his availability - there are reserves in place and we will announce as soon as we have confirmation. A representative of the Velindre Charity will be attending the Summer Ball to say a few words on the night in the hope that this encourages more contributions to this very worthy cause.

I am pleased to say we have secured TSR Legal Recruitment as one of our sponsors this year. I was delighted to attend a (very cold) Cardiff City v Bristol City football match last month with Dan Mason, its Senior Key

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Accounts Executive. I am very pleased to say my hometown Cardiff won the match - I must be a lucky charm! Members of MILS, can access a discount of their fees. If you wish to get in touch with Dan, he can be contacted via email at: danieltsrlegal.co.uk Renewal of the Membership of MILS was in February and if you have not renewed as yet, or you wish to join, please arrange to do so as soon as possible so you can receive the membership benefits and discounts connected to the society! The Membership cards have been produced and we are continuing to secure new companies offering discounts for our members.

As I have mentioned previously, the Summer Ball will take place on Friday 15 June 2018 and I do hope you have all saved the date. Tickets are available now so please book early to secure your booking.

Tickets are £45 or £450 for a Table of 10 for a three-course meal, with a live band and entertainment. We have of course subsidised the costs for our members to ensure value for money.

There will be a Silent Auction and Raffle on the night and we welcome any donations any wishes to put forward. We have already obtained some fantastic prizes and items one of which being a weekend stay in a 5-Star Hotel in New York and are seeking the flights to go with this!

The Summer Ball looks to be a fantastic event and I hope to see you all there! l Mel Bevan-Evans President Monmouthshire Incorporated Law Society

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REGULARS

chancery lane

There hasn’t been much business transacted in the last three council meetings. Council has been focusing on its new governance structure, which bores everyone who doesn’t sit on council (and some of those who do). But it is important to try to get the society’s governance right to that the entire organisation runs well.

Governance reforms There are three areas which are being changed. The most important is the leadership of the society. The new structure retains the office holders - the president, vice president and deputy vice president - but replaces the old boards, to which council had delegated authority for management, membership services, regulatory affairs and legal affairs and policy. In the place of these four boards is a new Law Society Board and two new executive committees which report to it. These are the Policy and Regulatory Affairs Committee (PRAC) and the Membership and Operations Committee (MOC). The Board consists of 15 people: the three office-holders, two staff members (the chief executive and the director of delivery and performance), the appointed chairman, 3 council members who have been elected to the Board, the chairs of PRAC and MOC and four members who have been appointed to the board, two of whom are solicitors and two who are not.

It has taken about three months to elect or appoint the board members and they met for the first time on 20 February. The chair of the Board is Robert Bourns, who was president of the Society last year. One council member who was elected to the Board is Mark Evans from North Wales, so Wales is represented on the Board. The executive committees will be meeting for the first time in the beginning of April.

Since the sudden departure of Catherine Dixon from her role as chief executive in January 2017, an interim chief executive has run the Society.

His name is Paul Tennant. He has done a tremendous job, for example by reducing the annual staff turnover rate from 40% in December 2016 to 21.6% in March 2018. But the Society cannot be run indefinitely by an interim chief executive so the process of appointing a permanent chief executive is underway. We expect an announcement shortly.

The third target for reform is council itself. There are three aspects to the reform of council - its role, its size and its composition. Council is to become a more supervisory body, delegating managerial functions to the Board, and it is to hold the Board and executive committees accountable. It is likely to meet less frequently, possibly only five times a year (it currently meets seven or eight times a year). The Council Membership Committee (CMC) is looking into the size and composition of council. Its work has taken several months and little progress has been made, largely because council has not accepted any of its suggestions. The CMC aspires to make council more representative of the profession and proposes to sacrifice democracy to achieve that end. The CMC appears to have fixed views about which geographic constituencies and practice areas should be represented on council but doesn’t appear to have asked the profession how it wishes to be represented. As a result, the reforms to the size and composition of council seem a long way off. The current timetable is for the reforms to be approved in the summer of 2019.

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Council vacancy I shall no longer be a council member by then. I am not standing for re-election and will retire from council in July after 12 years’ service. I encourage anyone who is interested to stand for election. I have enjoyed my time on council and met many interesting and good people who I would never otherwise have met. I have learned about regulation, democracy (particularly the importance of responding to consultations) and devolution as a result of this experience. Although I’d like another term, the time has come to stand down. I very much resented Dame Nichola Nicholls telling council two years ago that we were too pale, male and stale (she was a Lady of the Victorian Order - what could be staler than that?) but I think the local profession would be better served by someone other than a man in his 60s who doesn’t know (or care) what a portal is, doesn’t understand what ‘streaming’ is and isn’t politically correct. [Although the local profession has benefitted considerably from David’s commitment and unwavering representation on Council on our behalf. We applaud and will miss him greatly – Ed.] Solicitors Qualifying Examination In January the SRA submitted to the Legal Services Board (LSB) a series of rule changes which pave the way for the Solicitors’ Qualifying Examination.

The LSB have a deadline of 90 days to approve rule changes and gave themselves 28 days to approve these. They received letters from academic societies asking them not to approve the new regulations. As a result the LSB deferred their decision by another 28 days. Since then I, along with a couple of others, have persuaded a number of people and organisations to ask the LSB not to approve the regulations. The LSB has published 11 letters on its website from people or organisations who have asked it not to approve the SQE regulations. Four of these are from Wales - Rachelle Sellek, the president, has written to express this society’s concerns about the SQE. Cardiff and District and City of London Law Society are the only local law societies to have written to the LSB objecting the SQE from a practitioner’s standpoint.

The SRA does not propose to hold the SQE in Welsh. Currently intending solicitors can take all their assessments in the Welsh language and qualify as a solicitor. That is the basis of the objection to SQE in its current form that I have made to the LSB. The Welsh Language Commissioner has also objected. The SRA seems to think it is exempt from the Welsh language standards which are imposed on universities and other regulators who assess in Wales. Indeed, the SRA is satisfied that the SQE regulations support the constitutional principle of the rule of law because “the SQE assures competence through rigorous, consistent assessment”.

I defy anyone, including the SRA, to find any reference in the books by Dicey or Lord Bingham to the principle of rigorous, consistent assessment as being a component of the rule of law. On the other hand, the concept of a regulator having to obey the law (in this case Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011) which other regulators and bodies are required to obey fits within both Dicey’s and Bingham’s conception of the rule of law.

Does this matter? Yes. Legal Services Act 2007 s 1(1)(b) states that one of the regulatory objectives of the Act, is ‘supporting the constitutional principle of the rule of law’. The SRA should know that and be bound by it.

Law Society committees The annual recruitment round for Law Society committees is upon us once again. There are vacancies for the following committees: Access to Justice, Children’s Law, Company Law, Conveyancing & Land Law, Criminal Law, Employment Law, European Union, Family Law, Housing Law, Immigration Law, Intellectual Property Law, International, Mental Health & Disability, Planning & Environmental Law, Technology & Law Reference, Professional Indemnity Insurance, Professional Standards & Ethics and Regulatory Processes.

Further details (including the deadline for applications) are available from the Law Society’s website.

Paul Morgan I finish with the sad news of the death of Paul Morgan on 22/23 February.

Paul worked as a solicitor for Rhondda Cynon Taff and was president of Pontypridd and Rhondda Law Society in 2015/2015 and equal opportunities officer of the Confederation of South Wales Law Societies for many years.

He was a good guy, funny and generous and a big supporter of law societies and he left a number of friends and colleagues who were shocked by his sudden death. RIP Paul. l David Dixon DixonD@cardiff.ac.uk Twitter: @saldixie

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FEATURES

A SENSE OF SELF...

Both the Commons and the House of Lords have recently voted for the UK to be the first to accept the creation of a baby using DNA originating from three different people.

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his IVF (in vitro fertilization) technique is known as mitochondrial replacement therapy and concerns the prevention of certain genetic diseases, which could potentially assist up to 2,500 women of reproductive age in the UK. The popular press, perhaps unfortunately, coined the phrase “three parent babies”, which immediately upped the ante in the debate and brought forth intense discussion involving church and pro-life groups. In particular this has concerned the ethics of this procedure, set against long held fears of designer babies and eugenics. Safety concerns have also surfaced and there have been warnings that any children of this technique could be born sterile or be at risk of cancer and premature aging. There has also been international condemnation where authors have commented that, because these children would have heritable genetic changes, that there are significant risks to the health of future generations.

Mitochondria are present to generate energy for the cell. They come from the mother and have their own genetic material, which sits alongside the germ line DNA of the “conventional” mother and father. The thought that this DNA might constitute parentage (i.e. the third parent) brings forth some interesting legal points. Parenthood has both a genetic and social meaning, although the former is regarded as the fundamental tie between parent and child. This contribution must be both direct and immediate.

To clarify, grandparents provide a quarter of a child’s DNA but are not accorded the status of “half“ genetic parents. The recent proliferation of assisted reproductive technologies has of course complicated matters and given that the donor of the mitochondria is making a direct and immediate contribution of generic material, then in my view, we have a new biological parent. In preparation of this article, I have found it difficult to make the counter argument. Pertinent to this of course, is now the fact that the new (third) parent is a second female parent. Avoiding this issue by trying to claim mitochondrial donation is merely a tissue donation is not adequate. Others may say that the contribution of the third parent to the child’s DNA is low, less than 0.1%, but in the world of genetics, where we are examining disease-causing changes which occur at a frequency of one in three thousand million (the size to the human genome), this is significant. We simply do not know enough to say that the mitochondrial DNA will have no material effect on the characteristics of the child.

In the UK, the mother is the person who carried the child and gave birth, the father is the man who provided the sperm. So what could be the status of the donor of the mitochondria? Is it that they have the same status as a donor of an egg or sperm for IVF or perhaps the status of those who donate blood, organs or bone marrow? Egg or sperm donation is in effect normal reproduction from a genetic point of view but the donation of mitochondrial DNA does not fall into that category; it may create a set of unique parental rights. Equally, mitochondrial donation cannot be considered simply as a tissue donation; there is an impact on future generations, as the DNA will be passed on.

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Since the courts quite rightly take the view that a child should “know” its biological parents, the second female parent may well wish to take an interest in the child (via appropriate application of her Parental Responsibility rights) or they may wish to give up Parental Rights. Their view may change over time; how the donor feels at the time of donation could be very different to how she feels once the child is born. Current provisions under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 do not cover this situation adequately. For example, a Parental Order as it relates to surrogacy (to gain or relinquish parental rights) can only be granted after a child has been born (and then for a fixed period only), not at the point of conception. Perhaps the mitochondrial donor will be able to gain Parental Responsibility via a court order or a formal ‘parental responsibility agreement’ with the child’s birth mother (let us presume that she is the egg donor as well...it gets even more complicated if she is not!).

If the premise of the second female parent is accepted, which I believe it should be, then we are in new legal territory as it relates to assisted reproduction and it is likely that several legislative amendments will be required to provide for mitochondrial donation. l Dr Neil Sullivan, BSc., MBA (DIC), LLM, PhD. General Manager, Complement Genomics Ltd. trading as www.dadcheckgold.com Dr Neil Sullivan is General Manager of Complement Genomics Ltd, which provides the dadcheck®gold service for parentage testing. He is a PhD level molecular biologist with a LLM in commercial law and has a particular interest in consent

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FEATURES

CELEBRATING SUCCESS The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, Cardiff & South East Wales Branch celebrated its 14th Annual President’s Dinner at the St David’s Spa Hotel, Cardiff Bay on 28 March 2018.

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was very proud to welcome a full room of guests (comprising CILEx professionals and members, CILEx branch members, CILEx Executive members, CILEx Council members, supporters and sponsors) to this always-popular event and introduced the national CILEx President, Millicent Grant.

Millicent led an inspiring speech on the topic of equality and diversity and opportunity for all professionals and guests to consider and encouraged CILEx members to feedback and update themselves on exciting changes to governance at a national level. More on this can be found on the CILEx website cilex.org.uk Congratulations to this year’s award winners and thank you to Millicent for

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helping us to announce them on the night.

Many thanks to this year’s sponsors, Phoenix Legal Services, Brightlink Learning and Yolk Recruitment and thank you to all our guests for supporting us and 2 Wish Upon A Star, this year’s Dinner charity. To find out more about the incredible support this charity offers families across Wales and it’s story, please visit 2wishuponastar.org. If you or your company can support the work of 2 Wish Upon A Star, please do contact them as it is a unique and much-needed charity in Wales.

We look forward to seeing you at the next CILEx C&SE Wales event! l Alexis Thomas President CILEx Cardiff & South East Wales Branch

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