Reimagining the Law 19 June 2020

1. Appointing Auditors

Audit legislation has special requirements for listed companies, but they need strengthening. To remove the conflict between the interest of the auditor in being re-appointed and his duty to perform his task without fear or favour, auditors of these entities should be appointed by the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority, who should also have power to remove them.
Bill Knight

2.The legal behemoth

Over the last couple of decades, the law has become unmanageable, completely out of control. The biggest culprits are the regulatory fields which have grown wild and no longer distinguish between crops and weeds. We need a flamethrower.
Philip Wood QC

3. Trust in society

Lawyers should refocus on building trust in society. AI fundamentally changes the practice of law and highlights the need for human empathy in our connections with each other and our clients. Law firm leaders must rethink the "old" ways of doing business and must demonstrate deep curiosity and cognisance of bias. The time is upon us. Behave differently and make a difference!
Justin D'Agostino

4. Prospective effect

Traditionally UK courts do not create new law, merely discover better versions of it. So the old law was never the law and the new version is retrospective. This can be a very costly fiction e.g. Cadder (possibly 600,000 trials), O'Brien (a £2 Billion hole in the MoJ's Budget), Cheshire West (£2.2 Billion a year). Allowing some UKSC decisions to have a mainly prospective effect would be more realistic, less costly and (occasionally) more democratic.
Professor Alan Paterson OBE

5. The coming Bretton Woods moment

The legal system for global governance needs to be super soft and decentralised. Notions of 'integration' will not survive and therefore 'cooperation' is key to the international global order. We must reimagine a new global compact that is more broadly based, extending beyond states and national governments, imbedding climate change mitigation, balanced with food, water, health, energy security for all.
Professor Dr Malik R Dahlan