Law Pod UK

There should be a distinction between AI and algorithms being tools for lawyers as opposed to lawyers and laws being the tools for the use of AI. The huge emancipatory opportunities offered by technology could be lost if we don’t get on top of it and allow it to overtake us, as we subject ourselves to all its processes. Rosalind English talks to Emily Foges, CEO of Luminance, an Artificial Intelligence programme for the legal profession, about the practical applications of algorithms to the law. How can we avail ourselves of the codes before the codes manage us?

Rosalind English talks to Kate O’Regan, who was appointed to the South African Constitutional Court at the dawn of the full franchise in 1994. Kate was one of the youngest appointees to a court with a profoundly important task, to apply the newly drafted Bill of Rights to a deeply divided society. Even with the demise of apartheid, conflicts persist: between African customary law and law imported from the country’s colonial masters, Britain and Holland; the cultural differences in the perception of the rights of women, and the uphill task of the courts to ensure the safety of citizens of the new South Africa from random violence on public transport.

The most senior family judge in England and Wales has ruled that a transgender man who gave birth with the help of fertility cannot be registered as his child's father.  This is first case of its kind, and Rosalind English discusses the decision with Charlotte Gilmartin, who points out that the ruling endorses a tension between legal parentage and social/psychological parentage in transgender cases.

Emma-Louise Fenelon talks to Jo Moore and Jon Metzer from 1 Crown Office Row about the UK Supreme Court decision in R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry & Ors v Advocate General for Scotland.  

In this episode Catherine Barnard discusses the Supreme Court Judgment on the "unlawful" prorogation of Parliament. 

Emma-Louise Fenelon talks to Isabel McArdle about some of the ways in which taxation and human rights overlap. 

In this episode Catherine Barnard, looks at Boris Johnson’s government’s prospects of securing a new deal with the EU. Can they pull off a new deal with the EU or will his “do or die” mantra lead to a no-deal Brexit at the end of October 2019?

As a bonus summer episode we bring you the questions and answers from  the Constitutional and Administrative Law Bar Association annual summer law conference in response to Jonathan Sumption’s Reith Lectures.  The panel features: Lord Dyson, Sir Stephen Laws, Lord Falconer, Professor Meg Russell, Professor Vernon Bogdanor and is Chaired by Mrs Justine Thornton.

To celebrate reaching 200,000 listens we have a selection of our popular 2019 episodes. A summer summary for listeners before we return in the autumn.

In Episode 89, Lord Sumption responds to a panel hosted by the Constitutional and Administrative Law Bar Association, in conversation with Lord Justice Singh.