Jury still out on whether Justice Secretary Grayling as well as Law Society and Bar Council top dogs will get wet
They may have spent years being dismissed by solicitors and barristers as the invisible branch of the legal profession, but today legal executives took a front-row-centre spot in the professional firmament by leading the way in the ice bucket challenge.
Diane Burleigh, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx), has only half an hour ago taken up the challenge, having been nominated yesterday afternoon by her own public affairs officer.
Burleigh — who was recently awarded an OBE and who spent years as an official at the Law Society before jumping ship to the legal execs — took the soaking with good grace. She nominated the legal profession’s regulators, but these days that could involve hundreds of people and untold gallons of ice water.
The CILEx boss also intriguingly suggested that Law Society chief executive Des Hudson and the Bar Council’s top bureaucrat, Stephen Crowne, would get a drenching later this afternoon.
Legal Cheek will keep an eye out, as legal aid solicitors will be especially interested in seeing Hudson go under several buckets of the extremely cold stuff. Indeed, one suspects that following his pasting in a no-confidence vote at the end of last year, many might like to see several buckets of something else tipped over Hudson’s bonce. (Update 18:22 — Hudson and Crowne drench themselves in water).
In addition, Legal Cheek has sights trained on the Ministry of Justice, as Secretary of State Chris Grayling was also nominated yesterday by his Labour shadow. Earlier today, a ministry spokeswoman was unable to say whether the Lord Chancellor would take his drenching while sitting on the woolsack — or anywhere else for that matter.
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Legal aid slasher Grayling nominated for the ice bucket challenge [Legal Cheek]
The Ice Bucket Challenge reaches the legal profession at last [Legal Cheek]