Peer Review on the Road

The inactivity here of late has been due to me being on the road again doing in-house versions of the “Peer Review” course. Our final immigration CCA appeal hearing tomorrow and Andy and my annual partnership review next week will also mean lean postings in the near future.
Any how according to the site stats quite a few of you have now found the IALS crime guidance linked to below in my absence.
The last two days have seen me doing the same day at two different (very) good criminal firms. This involves a lay review of some files in the morning followed by a personalised version of the course in the afternoon. Having so reviewed a number of firms files now I am slowly coming round to accepting the value of this form of assessment – though not perhaps for the same reasons as the IALS.
It seems clear that whilst one only gets a partial view of “quality” (especially in crime where advocacy is so critical to such an assessment) you certainly over a sample of files get a feel for the quality, approach and ethos of the firm. Most strikingly you get a feel of the effectiveness of supervision in both the SQM and wider sense. It is also not hard to identify significant difference between firms – equivalent to the PR scoring scale with the formal process “objectifying” these gradations via the involvement of peers and the IALS.
The last two days have also made me revisit (though not totally discount) the argument which runs “you can’t do competent plus casework on current rates”.

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