Lobby groups set up on both sides as questions loom large for the country’s legal framework
Debate among lawyers over Brexit stepped up last month as lawyers from chambers 8 New Square and Legal Business 100 firms Slaughter and May, CMS Cameron McKenna and Wedlake Bell formed a new pro-Brexit lobby.
The formation of the group comes after it emerged Justice Secretary Michael Gove and his predecessor Chris Grayling are in the out camp, joining forces despite the fact Gove has spent the last ten months undoing a number of high-profile policies implemented by Grayling.
The new group ‘Lawyers for Britain’ follows the formation of ‘Lawyers – In for Britain’, which is purported to have more than 300 senior City lawyers as members, led by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer competition partner John Davies.
The newly-established Lawyers for Britain’s committee is chaired by 8 New Square’s Martin Howe QC and includes Wedlake Bell intellectual property partner Clive Thorne, Slaughter and May support lawyer Eric Phillips and CMS senior associate Victoria Hewson. The lawyers on the committee are acting in their own capacity rather than representing their firms.
According to the group, Britain’s exit from the EU is legally straightforward and can be achieved in four steps.
‘We believe that there needs to be a fundamental change in Britain’s relationship with the EU. This cannot be achieved unless we vote to leave the current treaties and then build a new and constructive relationship which preserves our trading links but restores our ability to be governed by our own laws,’ the group’s website states.
Thorne said the group is in the very early development stages and he could not say how many had joined.
He said: ‘It’s a recent development, but there is an enormous amount of interest in it. Lawyers are by inclination eurosceptic because issues of sovereignty, constitutional law and so on are at the core of legal practice.’
He added: ‘I’ve heard the view expressed “Oh, of course lawyers are for the EU” in the same way that one hears platitudes about businesses in favour of the current proposal on the table and it really hides conflicting attitudes. Every element of economic activity probably has a different view and this is a good group for expressing those different views.’
Legal Business research conducted with Herbert Smith Freehills last month found that 64% of general counsel wanted the UK to remain in the EU, against 22% supporting Brexit. A 2010 House of Commons report concluded that 50% of the UK’s economically significant laws derive from EU legislation.
victoria.young@legalease.co.uk