The Supreme Court made legal history last month — shame the lawyer behind the case wasn’t in court to see it
Jo Hickman, today crowned The Times’ lawyer of the week, has admitted that she wasn’t there to witness the “extraordinary” end to a Supreme Court case that she was working on because she assumed that she could skip one day of the hearing.
The Supreme Court sent shockwaves through legal London earlier this month when it halted a judicial review challenge against the Ministry of Justice mid-hearing, ruling in favour of the appellants — the Public Law Project (PLP) — without even bothering with the second day of submissions.
This was unprecedented, unheard of, a total legal first — but Hickman, a solicitor and the director of PLP, wasn’t around to see it. Speaking to The Times (£), she described her most memorable experience as a lawyer as:
Missing the extraordinary conclusion of this case by blithely assuming I could just go to court on day two of the listed hearing.
Other amusing titbits from Hickman’s short interview with the national newspaper include her confession that she embarked on a legal career because of a “lack of imagination”.
And so her key piece of advice for aspiring lawyers is this: “use your imagination”. At Legal Cheek, we think not making assumptions is equally important advice.