With half the economies of Europe going down the pan – and the other half already there – it is appropriate that one of the issues most exercising the legal world is that of wills and probate. Last month the Legal Services Board published proposals to make will writing and estate administration 'reserved activities'. The justification for the proposal is that it would allow for regulation of the activities and the protection of consumers.

Quoted in the Law Society Gazette, the LSB said that "too often consumers were subjected to unfair sales practices...and indeed the incidence of fraud, was also disappointing".

Of course such practices could not exist among our venerable legal community: one that includes (well, included) such upstanding practitioners as David Friesner, Richard Simkin and Zaki Sharif (did the latter two really pay £2,400 for a signed photo of Mohamed Ali?).

Maybe the service providers in the Expert Witness Directory would agree with the move. It's true that more and more non-solicitors have been offering such services, and to be fair to the LSB there has been a rise in the number of wills going to probate that was, in the words of one probate expert, "in direct proportion to the number of DIY wills".

That last comment was in response to figures from the Probate Service which showed that the share of probate grants to solicitors and other specialist firms last year was just 44%, having fallen by 30% from 2006 to 2010. Now I wonder whether making such activities 'reserved' would lead to a reversal in that trend...mmm.

LASPO is now on the statute books, there having been what seems from here an unseemly rush to Royal Assent. Lord Bach, the Labour Peer who led the rearguard action against it, has stepped down from his post and has described parts of what is now the Act as "not just bad but actually wicked". In his Tweets he was vociferous against the Liberal Democrats, who did not oppose the Bill in the Lords. It could be that LASPO was one element of what Lib Dem president Tim Farron meant when he apologised to all the councillors who got the boot last Thursday, when all the disaffected Labour voters realigned themselves.

Farron said in an interview for the BBC: "Those guys lost their seats last night not through their fault, but through our fault because of where we are nationally being in government."

Somehow, I think it's unlikely. Most people don't think about access to justice until they themselves are deprived of it; when they can't get legal aid and can't appoint an expert witness to add weight to their case.

On which subject, court officials are due to start industrial action tomorrow, throwing the justice system into turmoil and slowing up the whole process. As one wag commented on the Gazette notice board: "I doubt anybody would notice."

Chris Stokes

The World Society for the Protection of Animals has taken the opportunity of the London Mayoral elections to campaign publicly for the budget of the Met's Wildlife Crime Unit to be restored to previous levels. The society claims three out of four of the candidates have committed to the cause, the exception being Boris Johnson.

It is no surprise that Ken Livingston was an early committer to the cause – his support for wildlife is well known, stemming from his lifelong interest in amphibians. Similarly, the Green Party's Jenny Jones would have little claim to be standing for that party if she were not committed to stamping out such abominations as the illegal trade in rhino horn and big cat fur.

The third to join the party, so to speak, was the Liberal Democrat candidate, former Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick. His 'video pledge' can be seen on YouTube.

The WSPA's website carries the opportunity to sign an open letter to the winning candidate urging action.

The letter reads in part: "We are calling on you to ensure that funding for the Metropolitan Police Service's Wildlife Crime Unit is restored to, at a minimum, the levels seen in 2003 when the Unit was established. We want you to commit to properly resourcing the Unit so it is able to function effectively."

The WSPA recently donated £100,000 to the Met's Wildlife Crime Unit to help fund its work. OK, it was a stunt, but it made the point.

Wildlife crime can also include the persecution of animal species here in the UK, be it badger baiting or the taking of birds' eggs. We are fortunate in that respect to have such bodies as the RSPCA and the RSPB who will pursue and prosecute perpetrators, acting as expert witness in subsequent court cases if necessary. North of the border, the Scottish Government maintains its own agricultural laboratory, SASA, part of whose job is to act as a forensic science and expert witness service in cases of wildlife crime.

"The bill is a sad and tatty chapter in the story of post war access to justice. The onslaught on our precious legal aid system is an act of vandalism for which this Tory-led government will be forever remembered."

That was the valedictory statement by shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan MP as the LASPO Bill finally exited the Lords for the last time on its way to Royal Assent. As befits a piece of legislation so controversial – not to say despised and hated – the passage of LASPO through the Lords saw the Government suffer a record 14 defeats, although it churlishly only gave way on the issue of mesothelioma claims.

Fresh from his Pyrrhic victory with the bill, Mr Clarke can't wait to get going on whiplash. It emerged today (30 April) that he and his oppo at Transport, Justine Greening, will make an announcement on 'curbing' claims on 2 May. Whether that means they will be announcing a miracle cure for the condition was not made clear, but it's probably safe to assume what they mean is that people will no longer be able to get compensation from someone who runs into the back of them – or, more properly, their insurer.

They are also expected to announce an accreditation system for doctors who can assess claims. So, having put the lawyers and the expert witnesses to the financial sword, the Government is after the GPs: those very same people who we are assured can safely administer the entire NHS budget are apparently not to be trusted to diagnose that most insidious of post-accident conditions.

Chris Stokes

Another amendment to be overturned is one to retain the provision of expert witness reports in clinical negligence cases. Put together, the two offer little redress for children suffering such grievances.

According to campaigning group JustRights, recently released figures show that 16% of children now receiving help with legal fees will lose out.

The group’s co-chair James Kenrick said: “After months of disingenuous claims by Government Ministers, these new figures reveal the true, shocking extent of the impact on children of this appalling piece of legislation. The Government has the chance on Tuesday to finally make good its claim that it wants to protect children from cuts to legal aid. If it does not, we now know that thousands of highly vulnerable children, often with little or no parental support, will be left to navigate alone a legal system which is daunting enough even for competent adults.”

Of course, when you think the goings on in our own fair land are driving you to distraction, we can always find solace in the near-lunacy across the pond.

This year is election year, which seems to be a signal for the entire United States to take collective leave of its senses. If we then narrow our gaze to focus in on California; well, bingo!

That ‘former’ bit is where the lawyers come in. Denham’s legal team are trying to disqualify Hernandes on the basis that his declaration of himself as an ‘astronaut’ on his ballot designation is not true. Mr Hernandes was the flight engineer on the space shuttle Discovery back in 2009 – his one space flight.

So Mr Hernandez is NOT an astronaut any more. Hopefully, however, the good burghers of California will resent having a candidate foisted on them who is not prepared to fight the seat on his own merits. How they react to that we will know in November. Can’t wait.

 Wakefield Council has no plans in place to deal with a zombie invasion, it appears. The shameful admission was made during a debate on Freedom of Information (FoI) requests at the Solicitors in Local Government weekend school on – you guessed it; no, 31 March. Close, though.

The issue arose in a presentation on frivolous requests – such as said preparations for zombie invasions. Apparently local authorities don’t have to bother responding to such requests, according to deputy information commissioner Graham Smith. He said that ‘silly and daft’ requests would be covered by existing guidance on vexatious requests.

It was left to Bernadette Livesey, director of legal and democratic services at Wakefield Council, who was one of the leaders of the session, to admit that her employers had actually responded to the zombie request.

“We were able to reply truthfully that we had no information,” she said, according to a report in the Law Society Gazette.

I toyed with the idea of posting a special 1 April blog, in the honourable tradition of some of our broadsheet newspapers. I realised, however, that some of the goings on in the world of the expert witness are far more bizarre than anything I could make up. One issue exercising expert witnesses above any other is the ‘reform’ of the fee structure. In this context, of course, that means to cut. It is a kind of reversal of the use of the term ‘review’ used to mean ‘increase’ when referring to bus fares.

In a kind of Alice in Wonderland view of the world, the fees allowed in London are less than elsewhere in the country – at a time when George and Dave are calling for the realities of local pay scales to be reflected in public sector pay. In the House of Lords on 5 March Lord Beecham quoted an NHS trust as saying the £90 per hour allowed wouldn’t cover the cost of a consultant.

It’s not been a good week for solicitors, either, at the hands of the courts. First the High Court ruled that the scrapping of fees for committals was legal, throwing out the Law Society’s move to judicial review. Then, there was the news that HSBC will not face an investigation by the OFT over the size of its conveyancing panel. Following that, 15 firms learned they are to be shut down by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority over professional indemnity insurance issues. It goes on.

As if all this dismal reality wasn’t enough, the spoil-sports at the Law Commission for England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission are ganging up to take away those small bits of light relief for when the burden of being law abiding gets too much: the obsolete Acts of Parliament! Legislation to rid the statute books of whole or part of 867 Acts will be laid before Parliament in the summer by the two bodies (who, to be fair, exist for just such a purpose). Many are to do with the early development of railways or regulation of various activities in India or Ireland. They will follow the obligation to attend archery practice into the recycling bin of history. There goes the livelihood of anyone listed in the Expert Witness Directory offering consultancy on such issues.

Chris Stokes