Socio-legal researchers increasingly recognise the need to employ a wide variety of methods in studying law and legal phenomena, and the need to be informed by an understanding of debates about theory and method in mainstream social science. The papers in this volume illustrate how a range of topics, including EU law, ombudsmen, judges, lawyers, Shariah Councils and the quality assurance industry can be researched from a socio-legal perspective. The objective of the collection is to show how different methods can be used in researching law and legal phenomena, how methodological issues and debates in sociology are relevant to the study of law, and the importance of the debate between "structural" and "action" traditions in researching law. It also approaches the methodological problem of how sociology of law can address the content of legal practice from a variety of perspectives and discusses the relationship between pure and applied research. The editors provide a critical introduction to each of the six sections, and a general introduction on law, sociology and method. The collection will provide an invaluable resource for socio-legal researchers, law school researchers and postgraduates.

"The occasional flashes of insight and the unique perspectives of the participants make this book invaluable for students doing research on the judicial process."--"CHOICE"

"Fascinating, spirited, and unique. This unusual book offers fresh illumination about what judges do and why they do it."
--Cass R. Sunstein, University of Chicago

"The format suggests that one has been invited into a special, high-level conversation where we can glimpse the uncensored converstation of thoughtful and seasoned jurists."--"The Law and Politics Book Review"

Law, politics, and society in the modern West have been marked by the increasing power of the judge: the development of constitutional justice, the evolution of international judiciaries, and judicial systems that extend even further into social life. Judges make decisions that not only enforce the law, but also codify the values of our times.

In the summer of 2000, an esteemed group of judges and legal scholars met in Provence, France, to consider the role of the judge in modern society. They included Robert Badinter, former president of the Constitutional Council in France; Stephen Breyer, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; Antonio Cassese, the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; Dieter Grimm, former vice president of the Constitutional Court of Germany; Gil Carlos Rodriguez, president of the Court of Justice of the European Union; and Ronald Dworkin, formerly of Oxford University, now professor of philosophy and law at the New York University Law School. What followed was an animated discussion ranging from the influence of the media on the judiciary to the development ofan international criminal law to the judge's consideration of the judge's own role. Judges in Contemporary Democracy offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the powers and the role of judges in today's society.

"Client listening is the single most important marketing activity." - Paul Amit, Head of Sector and Client Marketing, DLA Piper. Forward-thinking firms know that listening effectively to their clients is crucial for improving client service, value, retention, and, ultimately, profitability. It can also help future-proof your firm by embedding client relationships, and anticipating client needs. Client Listening: Why It Pays and How to Do it, will show you how to design and implement effective client listening programmes and act on the intelligence gleaned to secure these critical benefits for your firm. It highlights the important factors that must be considered before launching a client listening programme, and offers practical advice to ensure its success. Topics include how to: * Identify the role of client listening within your firm's broader CRM and BD initiatives; * Overcome typical objections from individual lawyers to engaging in client listening; * Determine the type of client listening activities which best fit your firm's culture, budget, timetable, and purposes; * Design and conduct effective client questionnaires and interviews (how-to guide included); and * Ensure client feedback is reported, shared, absorbed, and converted into action appropriately. Real-life case studies from DLA Piper, Ashurst, CMS Cameron McKenna, K&L Gates, and KPMG reveal how firms are currently using client listening as a means to deepen client relationships and develop more responsive, value-added services. Useful appendices are also included to assist you with the design, launch, and fine-tuning of your own client listening programmes. These include: * A client listening planner; * A sample client invitation; and * A sample discussion guide for a client service review.

The success or failure of your firm is determined by how your clients and employees view your brand - simple. An effective brand strategy that is clearly understood and supported throughout your firm is crucial if you want to attract and retain profitable clients and sustain a talented workforce. Brand Strategy and Management for Law Firms report provides a comprehensive framework and guidelines for developing a brand strategy tailored to your firm. Packed with key concepts, practical tools, tips and advice this report will give you an understanding of brand and how it can be developed and strengthened as your firm's most invaluable asset. Specifically, this report will help you to: * Understand the key elements of personal brands, firm brand, and the employment brand - and how they relate to each other; * Align your brand strategy with your overall firm strategy, vision and values; * Realise the importance of brand names, icons or logos, design and aesthetics; * Understand the key brand considerations when using online channels - websites, blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook; * Create a customised brand stress-test and make improvements to strengthen your firm's brand accordingly and ensure its success; * Get partners and staff on board to support and grow your brand; and * Avoid brand mistakes and overcome the common challenges - including recommended steps for managing your brand before, during and following a merger. Brand Strategy and Management for Law Firms features insightful case studies, examples and expert contributions from the likes of Norton Rose South Africa, DLA Phillips Fox, Lex Mundi, Lex Africa and more - They reveal practical tips, lessons learned and mistakes made that will prove invaluable in the development and management of your own brand strategy.

Court reporters--those who record courtroom legal proceedings and then transcribe them into writing--are a growing subspecialty in the field of legal administration. With the increasing volume of litigation in U.S. courts, the duties of all reporters have become more complex and their ranks increasingly professionalized. This book serves as an introduction to the business of legal reporting and a guide to those involved in managing reporters--both those who work for court jurisdictions and those who work on a free-lance or contract business for independent firms specializing in legal reporting services.

While much fundamental research in the recent past has been devoted to the criminal jury in England to 1800, there has been little work on the nineteenth century, and on the civil jury . This important study fills these obvious gaps in the literature. It also provides a re-assessment of standard issues such as jury lenity or equity, while raising questions about orthodoxies concerning the relationship of the jury to the development of laws of evidence. Moreover, re-assessment of the jury in nineteenth-century England rejects the thesis that juries were squeezed out by judges in favour of market principles. The book contributes a rounded picture of the jury as an institution, considering it in comparison to other modes of fact-finding, its development in both civil and criminal cases, and the significance, both practical and ideological, of its transplantation to North America and Scotland, while opening up new areas of investigation and research. Contributors: John W Cairns Richard D Friedman Joshua Getzler Roger D Groot Philip Handler Daffydd Jenkins Michael Lobban Grant McLeod Maureen Mulholland James C Oldham J R Pole David J Seipp

This critical report provides the most up-to-date and detailed guide to the practical, regulatory and ethical considerations that must be reflected in your partnership agreement. Extensively revised, the second edition features new case studies and real-life examples, including a sample agreement precedent and comprehensive updates to reflect how new legal and regulatory developments will affect your deed. Key subjects covered include: *The impact of the Legal Services Act on partnership agreements; *Discrimination in partnerships, in particular, age discrimination; *Outcomes-focused regulation; *New business structures; *Distressed partnerships; *Current trends in mergers; *Profit-sharing arrangements and management structures: *The equality system *Profit share by capital contribution *Seniority (lockstep) *Merit or performance systems *Hybrid profit sharing systems *Retirement annuities *Performance measurement, supervision and disciplinary measures; *De-equitisation: provisions for expulsion from the partnership; *Expulsion, retirement and dissolution; *Good faith, arbitration and mediation; *Drafting for the future, avoiding early revisions and much more - Ensure you understand the necessary considerations of an agreement that not only fulfils legislative requirement, but ensures the attraction, retention and motivation of the best talent for your firm.

With rising competition putting pressure on law firms to raise their performance levels, Alan Hodgart's much anticipated report on Performance Measurement for Law Firms could not have come at a better time. Hodgart, an acknowledged industry expert, provides practical step-by-step guidance on how to effectively measure the performance of your fee earners, core support functions and overall firm. Hodgart highlights the key challenges many law firms face when measuring performance and provides critical advice on how to tackle them successfully through the development of an effective performance measurement system. Key topics covered include: * Measuring performance in law firms - what it means and what to measure; * The key financial measures of profitability and how to calculate them - cost, profit, revenue; * The data and financial information required at firm and practice-group level; * The effective use, and abuses of financial data; * Aligning the economic structure of your type of work to maximise profitability; * Implementing an effective performance measurement system; * How to measure the performance of your fee earners and support staff - finance, IT, Marketing, HR, KM and other; * Client profitability, project management and much more - The report focuses particularly on profitability and demonstrates how it can be used to monitor and compare the outcomes of working with different clients to project future revenue and profit levels. It also includes a useful appendix - an 'Economic Template' which demonstrates how to assemble the relevant data to manage the financial performance of your firm. Performance Measurement for Law Firms is essential reading for any firm looking to measure and enhance all areas of their performance.

"The beauty of the ABCDE model and toolkit is that it is simple but not simplistic, it's user-friendly and works in practice." Joanne Gubbay, Former Head of Learning and Development, Slaughter and May Lead your team of lawyers to new heights with this tried-and-tested toolkit, based on 25 years' practical experience of getting the best out of lawyers. Leading Lawyers distils 25 years of experience at helping people do just that into one easy-to-read practical toolkit. Based on the successful ABCDE methodology, this guide will help you identify your natural leadership style, identify the various needs and personalities in your team of lawyers, and align everything to become a truly impactful and supportive leader. Packed with real-life inspiring examples, ready-made tools and memorable tips, Leading Lawyers will help you reflect on your own communication preferences, and use what you learn to get different stakeholders and different personalities on board. From scoping the project with a client to reviewing progress and success, from on-boarding a new team member to tackling a stubborn problem, there are examples each step of the way and opportunities to plan how to use the approach in practice, so you can become an even more effective team leader. SALLY SANDERSON is a multi-award-winning consultant to law firms. Specialising in leadership, emerging leaders, people and project management, she uses personality profiling to increase self-awareness and speed up development. Her ABCDE approach has been used by thousands of lawyers across the world with outstanding results.

In a highly competitive fee-focused environment, project management can be your law firm's lifeline. Project Management for Lawyers report provides a structured approach to planning, pricing and managing legal work that will boost profitability and deliver superior value to your clients. It aims to: *Demonstrate the value of applying project management to a legal practice; *Explain basic project management principles and how to apply them within your law firm; *Provide a simple legal project management framework; *Describe key tools and techniques to support the framework; *Discuss legal project management as a pricing and business development strategy; *Show how lawyers can manage matter profitability and demonstrate value to clients; *Guide lawyers in overcoming the challenges in managing a matter profitably (time, scope and cost); and, *Share practical advice on how to develop and implement a legal project management programme within your firm. Real-life in-depth case studies provide valuable insight into the successful legal project management programmes of Dechert LLP, Eversheds LLP, Seyfarth Shaw LLP and McCarthy Tetrault. A case study from the Royal Bank of Canada is also included to provide the a client's perspective on the value of legal project management. Project Management for Lawyers also comes with a complimentary CDRom packed with useful forms, templates, checklists and frameworks that can be used immediately in planning and executing your own project management programme. These include: *A generic work plan; *A sample staffing profile; *A sample agenda for a project kick-off meeting; *A sample roles and responsibilities sheet; *A client satisfaction review questionnaire; *A project risk log; *A sample change request form; *A sample monitoring worksheet; *An example of an agenda for a lessons learned session; *An example of how to calculate leverage on matter profitability; *A completed monitoring worksheet; and *A work plan for an asset purchase.

So you AZre in A C or striving to be in A C The Lawyer AZs top 200. But are you being measured on what your clients actually find attractive? With increased demand for efficiency, value added services and effective governance, a ranking based simply on revenue is not sufficiently compelling. Having an effective governance model and the right measures of success in place are now vital to secure sustainable profitability for your firm. AZs report on Law Firm Governance and Measurements of Success provides a vital examination of: New governance models for law firms of different sizes and complexities; Law firm growth stages and the structural changes necessary to succeed; Overcoming the cultural barriers/issues involved with changing your governance and/or measurement systems; Current measurements of success A C internal and external; New medium and long-term success metrics to better support long-term thinking, and payment and reward structures; Attracting clients and external investors through effective reporting of your firm AZs success; and more Peter Blair, former first chief operating officer of Field Fisher Waterhouse provides cutting-edge analysis on The Lawyer AZs top 200 firms by examining what creates their success. Peter evaluates whether the measures used are effective and demonstrates how by using alternative metrics you can boost your rankings. Featuring real-life case studies this invaluable report provides a vital insight into current law firm governance models, examines where they are going wrong and how they can be improved to secure sustainable growth.

If you were to liken your firm to a restaurant, would it be a Rules? A Nobu? A Fat Duck? A Pizza Express? Or a McDonald AZs? All of the above have a successful business strategy based on the needs of their target market. Could you say the same for your firm? In an increasingly competitive and changing legal market, knowing where and how to compete through the implementation of a clear strategy is crucial to ensure a profitable future for your firm. AZs report A C The Strategic Law Firm A C will help you analyse your firm AZs core strengths and capitalise on them by developing a coherent business strategy for success. Specifically this report will help you: Identify your strengths and priorities; Understand and implement the key elements of a successful strategy - value proposition, client segments, client relationships, provision of services, revenue, key resources, key activities, cost structure, partners; Visualise, understand, review and tailor your business model; Build the right focus for your firm (industry, client or transaction based); Align your teams and leaders to target the right clients and industries; Understand disruptive models; and more The report further sets out the practical details of how a strategy planning day should be organised - before, on, and after the day, including: A series of nine potential exercises ranging across values alignment through to market segmentation and scenario analysis; Specific worked examples of ways to calculate team financial and contribution measures; Capturing the outcomes into one page plans, which can be utilised at firm, team and individual level to drive your ongoing agendas; and Useful examples, checklists and templates for immediate implementation. This uniquely practical report will help you devise an effective strategic vision for your firm, and provides the tools to ensure that vision is achieved.

Want to know how to - Successfully market, brand and sell yourself in this digital era? Generate GBP500,000+ of new client work enquiries in a year? Have more choice, change and control in the direction of your career, business or life? And be entertained whilst being informed? If your answer is YES then the naked lawyer is essential reading for you - Packed with examples, case studies and 'to do's' focusing on 10 key elements (with hundreds of proven successful steps, tips, hints and secrets) this inspirational book will show you how to get more clients, sales, referrals, income, value, growth and success. Within the report, author, lawyer and entrepreneur, Chrissie Lightfoot reveals the ROAR (Reach Out And Relate) model, a successful blueprint detailing how, as a trainee solicitor and newly qualified lawyer (during the 2009 recession), she achieved GBP562,000 of new client legal sales generation enquiries and referrals. From start to finish the naked lawyer will provide you with a complete strategy and skills toolkit for brand, career and business development - covering key areas including: Devising an effective personal brand; Using social media to build brand, win business and enhance relationships with clients; Innovation; Getting referrals and winning business; Creating a strategy and mindset for success; Communication; Client relationship management; and much more...

Over the past decade, the European Union and national policy-makers alike have paid more attention to childhood poverty and children's rights. Whether this has led to better policies, and whether these policies have in turn resulted in less childhood poverty and more human dignity, remains debatable. Children's rights may provide some common ground for the different perspectives on the causes of poverty. They also introduce specific process requirements, in particular the participation of the poor. At the same time, children's rights may gain from an encounter with child poverty studies, not least in grasping the complexity of child poverty and in making a realistic assessment of their own potential for addressing child poverty. This book introduces several approaches in the field of child poverty and children's rights studies, and identifies intersections between different theoretical approaches from both domains. It is a collaborative project of Centrum OASeS and the UNICEF Chair in Children's Rights, both located at the University of Antwerp. The Chair, established in 2007, acts as a knowledge broker of children's rights within the academic community and between the academic community and policy and practice, through teaching, research, and service to the community. The research topics of the Centrum OASeS include poverty and other forms of social exclusion, ethnic minorities, urban policy, social economy and supported employment, and social networks.

With the introduction of Alternative Business Structures fast approaching and more and more partnerships converting to LLP status to meet the new requirements and remain competitive - now may be the time to start considering the benefits of conversion for your own firm. The conversion process can be a challenging one with wide-reaching implications. But a successful LLP conversion can provide the ideal opportunity to review your core business operations, allowing you to plan positive change and growth in an increasingly competitive and changing market. Managing Partner's new report on LLP Conversion for Law Firms provides a highly practical, step-by-step guide specifically taking into account the unique considerations that are raised by today's economy and evolving legal marketplace. It highlights the key questions that need to be asked during the preparation and transition stages, as well as how to deal with the complications that may arise after conversion has taken place. Key topics covered include: + Converting from a partnership to an LLP - key considerations and trends; + Advantages and disadvantages of converting from a partnership to an LLP; + Preparatory work and practical issues involved; + The default provisions and their drawbacks; + Tailoring the LLP agreement to reflect the needs of your firm; + Transferring the existing partnership business into the LLP - key issues and contractual obligations; + The general tax treatment of limited liability partnerships - possible complications that may arise after the conversion and how they might be handled; + Management and technical resources involved in the conversion - Is outsourcing an option? + The implications of the Legal Services Act 2007 and the introduction of Alternative Business Structures. LLP Conversion for Law Firms includes valuable behind-the-scenes access to existing LLPs and the common pitfalls and successes they encountered through the conversion process. In addition, you will also find a precedent for an LLP agreement within the Appendix. Whats more ...this publication comes complete with a complimentary CDRom containing all the required forms for an LLP agreement in an easy to access format. About the author Nicholas Wright is chief executive of Wright Son & Pepper. He has specialised in LLPs and professional regulation for over 15 years and has been a member of the Solicitors' Assistance Scheme for most of that time. He has acted for a number of substantial firms in dealing with regulatory issues, as well as dealing with drafting, restructuring issues and disputes.

In academic human rights research, especially legal human rights research, little attention tends to be devoted to questions of methodology. One reason for this may be that human rights scholars often are former human rights activists. Dispensing with methodological niceties enables them to engage in wishful thinking and to come up with the conclusions they were hoping to find in the first place. Furthermore, although much emphasis continues to be put on the need to carry out human rights research from a multidisciplinary perspective, the methods to be applied in such research remain far from clear. Which criteria can be identified to qualify a piece of human rights research as a methodologically sound piece of work? Are there aspects and considerations that are typical for human rights research? What are good practices in human rights research? This book addresses these questions from the perspective of different scholarly fields relevant for human rights research, including international law, criminal law, criminology, political science, comparative politics, international relations, anthropology; philosophy, and history. This book is essential reading for any PhD candidate embarking on a dissertation in the field of human rights and any human rights scholar wishing to critically reflect on the quality of her/his own methods of work.

In an era in which law firm performance is increasingly public - and a determining factor for where the best lawyers decide to practise - it seems clear that firm management would want to adopt tools that are proven to improve performance. An increasing number of firms are now adopting this long established tool and there is growing evidence that firms which employ balanced scorecards to drive strategy implementation have significantly improved shareholder returns. Balanced Scorecards for Law Firms report provides a vital introduction for firms wanting to know more about how the balanced scorecard can improve their own firm's performance. The report and the tools explained within it reach well beyond revenue per lawyer and profit per equity partner to identify meaningful measures and actions related to the development of quality people, highly satisfied clientele, and superior business practices and processes. Specifically, the report will give you a clear understanding of: The balanced scorecard concept and tool, its practical application and the results you can achieve from its adoption; How to apply the concept in a law firm environment - the central opportunities and challenges the tool presents for law firm management; and Each of the major elements of a balanced scorecard - with an emphasis on their meaning in a law firm environment: Financial measures; Client measures; Learning and growth; and Business processes. Balanced Scorecards for Law Firms provides you with pragmatic advice, real world case studies and invaluable expertise to help you begin utilising a tool that can dramatically improve focus, accountability and execution of strategy. Begin outperforming your competitors in an increasingly difficult and aggressive market place.

Risk management within law firms is a rapidly developing area. In the last year economic changes alone (the term 'credit crunch' was as yet unheard of when the second edition was written) have served to highlight the need for your risk management strategy to be under constant review. The credit crunch raises the game for all firms substantially, bringing to the fore issues involving: People; Clients; Regulatory risk; and Insurance. This report, substantially increased in size to deal with the emerging issues, aims to give you a clear understanding of how they will affect your law firm and how you need to respond, in order to manage them effectively. The third edition covers: Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) monitoring and enforcement of the Solicitor's Code of Conduct 2007; The Legal Services Act 2007 and the risks it presents; and A review of compliance with the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 - a year after their implementation on 15 December 2007. The report guides you through the distinct requirements of a risk management system including: Responsibility at senior management level; A framework for managing risk across all parts of the business; Integration of risk management processes into firm culture; Accountability in each practice area and support function; A risk evaluation process; External assessment; and Business continuity planning. Subjects covered include: Credit crunch risks; People and culture issues; Client engagement; Finance; Protecting partner assets; Compliance; File auditing; Managing your insurance; Office systems; Location and premises issues; Professional indemnity insurance; And more - Risk Management for Law Firms, 3rd Edition provides an in-depth analysis of key risk areas within the firm and aims to help firms meet new and emerging challenges with clear, practical examples.

This vital report is the only textbook of its kind for practitioners in this complex area of law. Since 2002 this essential resource has continued to fulfil its promise of: Enabling compensated persons to understand and obtain the best deal from the means-tested benefits system through the use of personal injury trusts; Enabling solicitors to unravel the mystique surrounding the foundation and administration of personal injury trusts and to equip them to fulfil their role better for it; Enabling solicitors to develop compensation protection services to help protect their firms from negligence claims and to improve the bottom line; and enabling solicitors to do these things in as efficient and as practical a way as possible with the greatest amount of professional peace of mind. The fourth edition has been fully updated to include: The significant changes by the mental capacity act 2005 which came into force fully on 1st October 2007; A revised and expanded property section with specific focus on purchasing property where there is a P I Trust in place or where the Court of Protection are involved; 2008 changes to the care rules and Employment and Support Allowance, which has replaced Incapacity Benefit for new claimants; Plus, new and up-to-date precedents. It is vital that every lawyer doing personal injury compensation work should have a copy of this book on their shelves to enable them to give truly comprehensive advice as to the final process in achieving compensation.

Human rights tend to focus on the relationship between the individual and the state the individual is the rights-holder, the state is the duty-holder. Children's rights bring a third player much more into the picture, namely the parents. Although, legally speaking, they are not duty-holders under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, parents do have a number of responsibilities under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights instruments. Child rearing may still be considered by many to be within the private domain, i.e. a matter of concern only within the relationship between children and their parents, with the exception of instances of child abuse or neglect. However, States may be obligated to turn parental responsibilities into national legal duties if this is needed to improve the legal and social position of children. In this volume, child-rearing responsibilities are examined in the light of children's rights and other human rights. All the contributions focus in particular on the proposal to introduce an upbringing (or parenting) pledge. The upbringing pledge contains not only a statement of lasting commitment towards the child, but also an explicit declaration of commitment to respect and promote the rights of the child both as a person and as a human being who is utterly dependent upon parents for wellbeing and the development of his or her personality. By means of the upbringing pledge as a child rights-based social institution, the responsibilities of society and the state towards both parents and children are re-affirmed as well.

The main objective of this book is to provide a basic introduction to key aspects of trial advocacy for all courts and tribunals.

Trial advocacy is explained in an easy-to-understand, step-by-step way and a number of examples and supporting annexures from actual court cases are used to illustrate relevant principles, strategies and tactics. Apart from serving as a basic guide for newly-qualified lawyers, the book also benefits non-lawyers intimately involved in procedural justice, like police officials, social workers, NGO advice offices, student legal aid clinics, court reporters and paralegals.

This volume provides an authoritative, evenhanded overview of the Trump administration's family separation and child detention policies at the U.S.-Mexico border-and the impact of those policies and actions on children, their parents, border security, and U.S. politics. The 21st Century Turning Points series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. Each volume provides readers with a clear, authoritative, and unbiased understanding of a single issue or event that is driving national debate about our nation's leaders, institutions, values, and priorities. This particular volume is devoted to the issue of child migrant detention on the U.S.-Mexico border. It provides background information on the political, social, and economic forces driving undocumented immigration into America; explains the policies and records of both the Obama and Trump administrations on immigration, deportation, and border security; summarizes current laws and regulations governing U.S. border and immigration policies; recounts President Trump's rhetoric and record on both legal and "illegal" immigration, including his promise to build a "Border Wall" with funds from Mexico; surveys living conditions in the border detention centers operated by U.S. authorities; and discusses the impact of detention and family separation on children taken into custody. Entries devoted to specific events and milestones Biographical profiles of important activists and figures Essays that explore the lasting impact of child detention on migrant children, their families, immigration trends, and American politics and society Annotated bibliography of sources for further study

This work deals with the real practicalities of getting results in the Magistrates' Court. It looks at who's who at court, and who holds what information, where forms are kept and how to fill them in. This new edition contains practical guidance which until now has been hard to find in other publications for example: how to get bail; how to argue for separate representation; what you should be looking for in disclosure; and a digest of jargon and shorthand used by the police, CPS and court staff.