The former most senior family judge in the UK has committed suicide after being diagnosed with dementia, his family announced yesterday.

Sir Nicholas Wall, 71 (pictured), was appointed president of the family division in 2010 but had to retire on health grounds early in 2012. He was initially diagnosed with depression, before recently being diagnosed with dementia.

His family placed a notice in The Times yesterday, which said he had “died by his own hand on 17th February 2017”. The notice added that “after years of suffering”, Sir Nicholas had recently been diagnosed with a rare dementia of the fronto-temporal lobe. The death notice included a verse from Tennyson’s poem Tithonus. The family later released a statement saying: “The family will make no further comment and asks to be left in privacy to grieve.”

Sir Nicholas’s appointment as president of the family division and head of family justice for England and Wales had been controversial because Jack Straw, then the lord chancellor, asked the judicial appointments panel that put forward his name to reconsider. The panel, chaired by Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, did reconsider but then put his name forward again as its preferred candidate. Straw was then left with the options of either exercising his right of veto, which would require him publicly to give reasons why; or endorsing the panel’s choice, which he then did.

Sir Nicholas was called to the Bar in 1969 and appointed a High Court judge in the family division in 1993 before being promoted to the Court of Appeal and Privy Council in 2004. He was described by the Family Law Bar Association as “a compassionate judge who thought and cared deeply about the outcome of his cases”.

In 2011 he called for cohabiting couples to be given the same legal protection as married couples when they separated, so that the courts could force them to divide their assets equally. He was also an advocate of “no fault” divorce.

Uncertainty over the ramifications of Brexit has triggered a boom in senior lawyer poaching between solicitor firms, legal profession specialist headhunters have claimed.

Hiring for senior and partnership roles at law firms leapt by 25 per cent in the second half of last year, a study released this week found. The researchers claimed that while 42 per cent of law firm recruitment in the first half of 2016 involved senior lawyers, that figure jumped to 67 per cent in the second six months.

According to the recruitment agency that commissioned the report, firms are attempting to poach expertise so that they can steal a march on competitors in the run-up to the UK quitting the EU.

“As we edge closer to the start of the Brexit trade negotiations there is less certainty over how the legal landscape will pan out,” said Rhiannon Cambrook-Woods, managing director of Zest Recruitment & Consultancy. “This appears to have prompted many firms to sure-up the talent they already have while actively targeting their key competitors and attracting their best people to work for them instead.”

Cambrook-Woods also highlighted the recent flurry of mergers at the large end of the law firm market, predicting that more consolidation was on the way – and not just among international firms.

“Smaller firms will be looking to form new alliances, to scale up their operations in line with legislative change and to achieve growth – something that many within the sector see as becoming more difficult once Article 50 has been triggered next month,” she said.

Rushing bills through parliament should not become standard, peers have warned after the fast-track treatment given to the bill triggering the UK’s exit from the EU.

The Brexit legislation “should not be seen as setting a precedent for future constitutional bills,” said the House of Lords constitution committee in its report on the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill.

The report specifically warns ministers that the fast-tracking must not be used “as a precedent in relation to future measures of constitutional significance, such as the Great Repeal Bill and other Brexit-related legislation”.

Lord Lang of Monkton, the committee chairman, said the bill currently before parliament “is undeniably of significant constitutional importance. Usually we would be concerned about the fast-tracking of constitutional legislation, particularly when the justification for doing so depends on a political, rather than constitutional, deadline.

“However, we recognise the political imperatives that underlie this bill. In addition, any concerns we might have about the curtailment of parliamentary scrutiny are mitigated by the fact that the bill is very short and straightforward”.

Lord Lang went on to say that the committee was clear that the Great Repeal Bill and other Brexit-related legislation would be much more complicated, and “we would expect that parliament will have the opportunity fully to scrutinise such important legislation”.

More online image copyright infringement occurs in China than in any other international jurisdiction – but France is not far behind, research released yesterday has found.

The UK has a far lower instance of online image theft, with the jurisdiction not in the top ten list of worst offending countries.

Researchers found that China – which has a reputation as having wide-ranging problems with intellectual property enforcement – had an image copyright infringement rating of 11 per cent. That means that more than one in ten online images in the country is breaching copyright.

According to the researchers from Copytrack, an intellectual property monitoring business based in Germany, France had the second highest incidence of infringement on slightly more than 9.5 per cent.

The US was the third worst, on about 8.2 per cent. The rest of the ten-strong league table included Turkey, Russia, the UAE, Spain, Ukraine, the Netherlands and Italy. The UK was in 29th position with just 0.75 per cent incidence of online image copyright infringement.

View from the Lords

It has been a gruelling week in the House of Lords overburdened as it was by the Brexit debate, writes Edward Fennell. Almost 190 peers wanted to make their contributions, including some legal luminaries. The debate as a whole was either the Lords at their best – or a protracted demonstration of their irrelevance. Here’s a taster …

Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Margaret Thatcher’s lord chancellor: “Being number 40 on the list reminds me that I was some 45 years outside the European Union, and I remember well some of the service that was done, as has been mentioned, in bringing us into the European Union and the difficulties involved.

“I voted for remain and was fairly enthusiastic about the referendum on the basis that the people were entitled to say whether or not they wished to be in the European Union. We know the answer and, so far as I am concerned, the government and parliament are bound to give effect to that answer.

“Perhaps the most obvious and dramatic indication of that was [David] Cameron’s resignation the morning after, when he said that having led the argument to stay, he could not lead the country out of the European Union.”

Lord Hunt of Wirral, former secretary of state for employment and then for Wales and former senior partner of the pre-merger City of London law firm Beachcroft Wansbroughs: “Like many others in the chamber, throughout my political career I have always been an advocate of closer co-operation among the governments and peoples of Europe, but it saddens me to say that the European Union simply failed to adapt to the complex, rapidly shifting challenges of what I describe as the new world order.”

Lord Lester of Herne Hill, QC, of Blackstone Chambers, a former special adviser on constitutional reform to the secretary of state for justice: “After attempting unconstitutionally to rush to the Article 50 exit without legislative authority, the government have produced this simple bill, which is no better than a motion to approve in legislative clothing, and a white paper that fails to explain the government’s strategy or to answer the key political and legal questions.

“The government interpret Article 50 as a trap that, once opened, cannot be closed. But its author … Lord Kerr of Kinlochard … has made it clear that when the Article 50 process is triggered the UK may continue to remain a member of the EU.

“The white paper – perhaps I should call it the off-white paper – contains statements worthy of Dr Pangloss, George Orwell and Humpty Dumpty. It claims that the UK’s constitutional arrangements make us ‘the world’s most successful and enduring multination state’. Tell that to the Celtic parts of our disunited kingdom. According to the prime minister, ‘after all the division and discord, the country is coming together’. That is fake and false news.”

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, former permanent under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office and former British representative to the EU: “The president of the European Council and a gallery of EU legal luminaries have confirmed … that a member state may, in accordance with its constitutional requirements, withdraw its notification within the two-year period or its extension.

“…The fact is that Article 50, which first saw the light of day under the heading ‘voluntary withdrawal’ is not an expulsion procedure. We remain full members of the European Union throughout the negotiating period – the two years or its extension. If, having looked into the abyss, we were to change our minds about withdrawal, we certainly could and no one in Brussels could stop us.”

Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, QC, the Doughty Street Chambers barrister: “There is a myth that we are the victims of a wash of law that comes from Europe. In fact we have contributed greatly to the creation of that law: harmonising standards, ensuring that the judgments in our courts are enforced easily and speedily throughout the European Union and protecting small businesses doing business with other countries.

“We have created consumer rights, and the quality of goods that are being sold has to meet our standards. It means that we can easily sue through our courts and have the judgments made effective. The government have now agreed that the final deal will come before both Houses, but I will ask a question. A statement like that has political force but does not have legal force. What does the promise mean if it is not in the bill? “

Lord Pannick, QC, of Blackstone Chambers, who acted for one of the applicants in the Article 50 judicial review: “I want to pay tribute to [Gina] Miller, because her determination in the face … of quite outrageous racist and sexist abuse has ensured that we have the opportunity to debate whether – and if so on what terms – Article 50 is invoked. The whole House should be very grateful to Mrs Miller.

“The Divisional Court and the Supreme Court carried out their constitutional responsibilities by affirming the supremacy of parliament. It is now for this House to live up to our constitutional responsibility. It is for us to scrutinise a bill of enormous importance to the future of this country.

“… The bill requires amendment, in particular to ensure parliamentary sovereignty as the process of withdrawal occurs over the next two years. Noble lords know that the prime minister has promised that any agreement with the European Union on the terms of our withdrawal and our future relationship with the EU will require the agreement of both Houses of Parliament. She has said that the agreements will so require before any agreement is put to the European parliament for its consent.

“That promise should be written into the bill. A political promise, made by the prime minister in good faith, is no substitute for a clause – an obligation – in an act of parliament.”

Legal aid shakeup hands lifeline to domestic violence victims – The Guardian

Thank God for expensive lawyers! – The Spectator

City firms’ trainee retention rates falling – Law Gazette

Clarification

In our report ("Lawyer faces inquiry over Iraq war claims", Feb 23) and in The Brief, we stated that Sapna Malik had helped British detainees at Guantanamo Bay to win a compensation claim against the British government. We have been asked to make clear that Ms Malik represented only one detainee, Binyam Mohammed. She did not represent Jamal al-Harith.