Alex MacMillan: Employment Law Barrister

Latest from Alex MacMillan: Employment Law Barrister

The Prosecutor’s fallacy

This is the classic illustration: a murder takes place. The forensics team identify hair from the crime scene. A DNA test is carried out, indicating that someone with a previous conviction who lives in the same town is a match.

The suspect is arrested. An expert report is produced: it states that

The justice system’s debts

You don’t have to pore through the pages of the Ministry of Justice’s statistics publications to be struck by the stark imbalance between the tally of employment cases that are filed each year, and the tribunal service’s ability to hear them. But if you do take a moment to review the

I do not propose to set out a complete explanation – but one factor is a mismatch between expectations and the reality. There is a survivor bias in the media whereby high-value payouts are widely reported, and the generality of cases – with more modest tribunal awards – do not warrant media interest.

There are

Most barristers are independent professionals. In practice this means they are self-employed and in competition with each other.

It is notoriously difficult to get into the English Bar (3,000 annual applicants, >400 places so prior probability of an 11% chance of obtaining pupillage as an academically-trained barrister in a given year), largely due to

a)

A brief excursus from the law to tackle current affairs…

Following the electoral results from Saturday (8 May 2021), the Financial Times reports today that Michael Gove, UK Cabinet Office Minister, has waved aside the suggestion that an advisory referendum on independence is on the cards — Westminster’s ‘exclusive attention’ is on the nation’s recovery

Two systems of thought Whether you are a prospective claimant or a company responding to an employment law claim, the pressures of litigation are likely to demand your attention and draw you into a series of time-limited actions. In his influential 2011 book Thinking Fast and Slow, the Nobel-prize winning behavioural psychologist Daniel Kahneman described