A presentation about collaboration, itself the product of a collaboration, looking at a collaborative project as an example of the value of people from different teams working together! That was Peter Griffith and Pete Smith at the BIALL Conference 2014 in Glasgow, a conference which took as its theme ‘law as a business.’ They discuss the challenges with reference to the LawSync project.
Change, it is said, is the only constant. Whilst it cannot be avoided, the worlds of legal education and legal services have arguably enjoyed an extended period where the impact of change has been comparatively minimal. Today, these worlds face significant changes due to a combination of market and regulatory forces. True, such changes are likely to be accompanied by challenges but with these challenges come opportunities. There is no reason why Law Schools and Law students cannot help to shape these changes and benefit from them. LawSync™ is a project that seeks to enable such influence and attract such benefits at Sheffield Hallam University. See http://www.lawsync.com and http://twitter.com/lawsync for more details. These changes will affect everyone involved in the legal system -solicitors, barristers, legal executives, customers and clients, and those who deliver the education and training of lawyers as well as the students of law themselves. With these changes in mind, we -an Information Adviser for Law and two Law lecturers from Sheffield Hallam University -set up a project to consider how our department (Department of Law, Criminology and Community Justice) could respond creatively to these changes.We selected "LawSync" as the name of the project because it reflects what we consider to be a need to bring together -synchronise -the demands and aspirations of all players including students, academics and information specialists, regulators and the variety of business and consumer interests in the legal services field.
The Equality Framework Directive requires member states to prohibit discrimination in employment on grounds of (inter alia) religion or belief. Defining the scope of the phrase 'religion or belief' is complicated and has given rise to debate in the United Kingdom, particularly with reference to belief which is not self-evidently 'religious'. The UK Regulations which implemented the Directive contained a definition referring to 'religion,… religious belief, and… similar philosophical belief'. This definition was subsequently changed, adding a specific reference to lack of belief, and removing the word 'similar'. This adds complexity to an already difficult area. This article considers the effect of these changes, identifies difficulties they cause and suggests a way of avoiding them.
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