Richard Moorhead
Biographic Data
| ID | 1493293 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard Moorhead |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard |
| FAMILY NAME | Moorhead |
| SIGNATURE | MOORHEAD R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cardiff University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 41 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
In-house lawyers and the price of saying no
Studies on in-house lawyers tend to suggest they rarely have to say ‘no’, and do so with no difficulty when they do or, conversely, find it too easy to get comfortable with questionable activity rather than say ‘no’. This paper offers a different, more realistic characterisation of the ‘trouble with no’. A series of sometimes emotionally raw semi-structured interviews explore the difficulties of feeling compelled to and then having to make a stan…
From agnosis to accidental activism
This paper explores the lived experiences of victims/survivors affected by the UK Post Office Scandal, drawing on 28 in‐depth interviews and critical legal analysis. It uses the concept of ‘accidental activism’ to explore how victims, initially isolated and disempowered, became central agents of justice reform. The authors examine how institutional agnosis and legality illusions—mechanisms of ignorance‐making and legal manipulation—enabled system…
Professional Minimalism? The Ethical Consciousness of Commercial Lawyers
This article investigates empirically, through semi‐structured interviews, what shapes the professional ethical consciousness of commercial lawyers. It considers in‐house and private practice lawyers side by side, interrogating the view that in‐house ethics are different and inferior to private practice to suggest as much similarity as difference. In both constituencies, and in very similar ways, professional ethical concepts are challenged by th…
Consequential Responsibility for Client Wrongs
Should transactional lawyers bear responsibility when their competent actions facilitate unlawful activity by their client? Or is a lawyer's only concern to act in the client's interest by providing her with the advice and support she seeks? The high profile failure of Lehman Brothers provides a unique opportunity to explore these questions in the context of the provision of a legal opinion by a magic circle law firm. A legal opinion which, altho…
An American Future? Contingency Fees, Claims Explosions and Evidence from Employment Tribunals
This article looks empirically at the notion of ‘American-style’ problems with contingency fees: in particular, the purported link between contingency fees and claims explosions. It does so in the light of renewed interest in contingency fees as a vehicle for access to justice and the resolution of costs problems in the civil justice system prompted by Jackson LJ and others. The article sheds light on the considerable debate about the (de)merits …
Lawyer Specialization-Managing the Professional Paradox
This article explores a series of paradoxes exposed by specialization within the legal profession. It will argue that while the existing literature rightly identifies specialization as posing potential challenges to coherence, legitimacy, and professional ethics, it fails to grapple with the relationship between professional competence and specialization. In exploring this relationship, three paradoxes are articulated. The first is that specializ…
Judgecraft
Judgecraft emerged recently as a common theme in our work, although it would also be fair to say that we had not, at that early stage, thought through its parameters. As UK academics working in the comparatively recent socio-legal terrain of empirical research into judges and judging, \nwe were both simultaneously searching for the appropriate tools to frame our work. Yet, that framework did not seem to exist, or, at least, did not seem to transl…
The Passive Arbiter
This article examines the challenges posed to judgecraft by litigants in person. It draws on significant empirical evidence from a study conducted by the author in England and Wales demonstrating the challenges posed by litigants in person to judges and the courts. It argues that a central concept behind traditional notions of judging, that of judge as passive arbiter, inhibits fair and effective adjudication. From an analysis of this evidence, i…
Access to Justice after Universalism
Contesting Professionalism
Professions are granted a form of cartel that enables them to charge more than would arise in a free market on the assumption that they provide better quality and are more trustworthy than free-market actors would be. The theoretical assumption that lawyers are more competent than nonlawyers has given rise to significant formal protections for professions in many jurisdictions. Two testable propositions arise from this theory: (1) lawyers cost mo…
Evaluation of welfare rights advice in primary care
Income maximisation may reduce enduring poverty-related health inequalities. Specialist welfare rights advice in primary care has been proposed and, in some areas, implemented, but evaluation data from the general practice perspective is needed. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact on general practice of specialist welfare rights advice, comparing practices with and without in-house provision of welfare advice using a cross-sectional po…
Third Way Regulation? Community Legal Service Partnerships
This article examines recent changes in the civil legal aid scheme in England and Wales (now called the Community Legal Service) and the creation of Community Legal Service Partnerships in particular. The article explores three main interests: it illustrates how third way thinking has been applied to the reform of the legal aid scheme under the Access to Justice Act 1999; it explores how partnership fits within theories of public regulation; and …
Legal Aid in the Eye of a Storm
This article discusses possible rationales underlying a legal aid system through an articulation of theories of distribution in the legal services market, considers the idea of prioritization and planning or, in the political vernacular, rationing of public funding, and addresses the impact of economic and social theories of the professions on legal aid structures. Finally, the emerging concepts of '‘new‐institutionalism’ and ‘new public manageme…
Contesting Professionalism
Professions are granted a form of cartel that enables them to charge more than would arise in a free market on the assumption that they provide better quality and are more trustworthy than free-market actors would be. The theoretical assumption that lawyers are more competent than nonlawyers has given rise to significant formal protections for professions in many jurisdictions. Two testable propositions arise from this theory: (1) lawyers cost mo…
Judgecraft
Judgecraft emerged recently as a common theme in our work, although it would also be fair to say that we had not, at that early stage, thought through its parameters. As UK academics working in the comparatively recent socio-legal terrain of empirical research into judges and judging, \nwe were both simultaneously searching for the appropriate tools to frame our work. Yet, that framework did not seem to exist, or, at least, did not seem to transl…
The Passive Arbiter
This article examines the challenges posed to judgecraft by litigants in person. It draws on significant empirical evidence from a study conducted by the author in England and Wales demonstrating the challenges posed by litigants in person to judges and the courts. It argues that a central concept behind traditional notions of judging, that of judge as passive arbiter, inhibits fair and effective adjudication. From an analysis of this evidence, i…
Legal Aid in the Eye of a Storm
This article discusses possible rationales underlying a legal aid system through an articulation of theories of distribution in the legal services market, considers the idea of prioritization and planning or, in the political vernacular, rationing of public funding, and addresses the impact of economic and social theories of the professions on legal aid structures. Finally, the emerging concepts of '‘new‐institutionalism’ and ‘new public manageme…
Lawyer Specialization-Managing the Professional Paradox
This article explores a series of paradoxes exposed by specialization within the legal profession. It will argue that while the existing literature rightly identifies specialization as posing potential challenges to coherence, legitimacy, and professional ethics, it fails to grapple with the relationship between professional competence and specialization. In exploring this relationship, three paradoxes are articulated. The first is that specializ…
Consequential Responsibility for Client Wrongs
Should transactional lawyers bear responsibility when their competent actions facilitate unlawful activity by their client? Or is a lawyer's only concern to act in the client's interest by providing her with the advice and support she seeks? The high profile failure of Lehman Brothers provides a unique opportunity to explore these questions in the context of the provision of a legal opinion by a magic circle law firm. A legal opinion which, altho…
Evaluation of welfare rights advice in primary care
Income maximisation may reduce enduring poverty-related health inequalities. Specialist welfare rights advice in primary care has been proposed and, in some areas, implemented, but evaluation data from the general practice perspective is needed. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact on general practice of specialist welfare rights advice, comparing practices with and without in-house provision of welfare advice using a cross-sectional po…
Access to Justice after Universalism
Third Way Regulation? Community Legal Service Partnerships
This article examines recent changes in the civil legal aid scheme in England and Wales (now called the Community Legal Service) and the creation of Community Legal Service Partnerships in particular. The article explores three main interests: it illustrates how third way thinking has been applied to the reform of the legal aid scheme under the Access to Justice Act 1999; it explores how partnership fits within theories of public regulation; and …
Legal Aid in the Eye of a Storm
This article discusses possible rationales underlying a legal aid system through an articulation of theories of distribution in the legal services market, considers the idea of prioritization and planning or, in the political vernacular, rationing of public funding, and addresses the impact of economic and social theories of the professions on legal aid structures. Finally, the emerging concepts of '‘new‐institutionalism’ and ‘new public manageme…
Third Way Regulation? Community Legal Service Partnerships
This article examines recent changes in the civil legal aid scheme in England and Wales (now called the Community Legal Service) and the creation of Community Legal Service Partnerships in particular. The article explores three main interests: it illustrates how third way thinking has been applied to the reform of the legal aid scheme under the Access to Justice Act 1999; it explores how partnership fits within theories of public regulation; and …
Evaluation of welfare rights advice in primary care
Income maximisation may reduce enduring poverty-related health inequalities. Specialist welfare rights advice in primary care has been proposed and, in some areas, implemented, but evaluation data from the general practice perspective is needed. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact on general practice of specialist welfare rights advice, comparing practices with and without in-house provision of welfare advice using a cross-sectional po…
Access to Justice after Universalism
Contesting Professionalism
Professions are granted a form of cartel that enables them to charge more than would arise in a free market on the assumption that they provide better quality and are more trustworthy than free-market actors would be. The theoretical assumption that lawyers are more competent than nonlawyers has given rise to significant formal protections for professions in many jurisdictions. Two testable propositions arise from this theory: (1) lawyers cost mo…
Judgecraft
Judgecraft emerged recently as a common theme in our work, although it would also be fair to say that we had not, at that early stage, thought through its parameters. As UK academics working in the comparatively recent socio-legal terrain of empirical research into judges and judging, \nwe were both simultaneously searching for the appropriate tools to frame our work. Yet, that framework did not seem to exist, or, at least, did not seem to transl…
The Passive Arbiter
This article examines the challenges posed to judgecraft by litigants in person. It draws on significant empirical evidence from a study conducted by the author in England and Wales demonstrating the challenges posed by litigants in person to judges and the courts. It argues that a central concept behind traditional notions of judging, that of judge as passive arbiter, inhibits fair and effective adjudication. From an analysis of this evidence, i…
An American Future? Contingency Fees, Claims Explosions and Evidence from Employment Tribunals
This article looks empirically at the notion of ‘American-style’ problems with contingency fees: in particular, the purported link between contingency fees and claims explosions. It does so in the light of renewed interest in contingency fees as a vehicle for access to justice and the resolution of costs problems in the civil justice system prompted by Jackson LJ and others. The article sheds light on the considerable debate about the (de)merits …
Lawyer Specialization-Managing the Professional Paradox
This article explores a series of paradoxes exposed by specialization within the legal profession. It will argue that while the existing literature rightly identifies specialization as posing potential challenges to coherence, legitimacy, and professional ethics, it fails to grapple with the relationship between professional competence and specialization. In exploring this relationship, three paradoxes are articulated. The first is that specializ…
Consequential Responsibility for Client Wrongs
Should transactional lawyers bear responsibility when their competent actions facilitate unlawful activity by their client? Or is a lawyer's only concern to act in the client's interest by providing her with the advice and support she seeks? The high profile failure of Lehman Brothers provides a unique opportunity to explore these questions in the context of the provision of a legal opinion by a magic circle law firm. A legal opinion which, altho…
Professional Minimalism? The Ethical Consciousness of Commercial Lawyers
This article investigates empirically, through semi‐structured interviews, what shapes the professional ethical consciousness of commercial lawyers. It considers in‐house and private practice lawyers side by side, interrogating the view that in‐house ethics are different and inferior to private practice to suggest as much similarity as difference. In both constituencies, and in very similar ways, professional ethical concepts are challenged by th…
In-house lawyers and the price of saying no
Studies on in-house lawyers tend to suggest they rarely have to say ‘no’, and do so with no difficulty when they do or, conversely, find it too easy to get comfortable with questionable activity rather than say ‘no’. This paper offers a different, more realistic characterisation of the ‘trouble with no’. A series of sometimes emotionally raw semi-structured interviews explore the difficulties of feeling compelled to and then having to make a stan…
From agnosis to accidental activism
This paper explores the lived experiences of victims/survivors affected by the UK Post Office Scandal, drawing on 28 in‐depth interviews and critical legal analysis. It uses the concept of ‘accidental activism’ to explore how victims, initially isolated and disempowered, became central agents of justice reform. The authors examine how institutional agnosis and legality illusions—mechanisms of ignorance‐making and legal manipulation—enabled system…
Political science (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Legal Education and Practice Innovations (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Law and economics (6 works) · Economics (5 works) · Business (4 works) · Economic Justice (4 works) · Legal principles and applications (4 works)