Justice may be blind, but the legal profession isn't, and from next year the public may get to see just what kind of people they are buying their legal services from.

The Legal Services Board (LSB), the body responsible for overseeing the regulation of lawyers in England and Wales, is mulling over plans that would require law firms and chambers to compile and publish comprehensive diversity information about their staff . This would include the seven diversity strands – age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation and working patterns – plus social mobility.

The work is the latest in a string of initiatives aimed at changing the profile of the profession. However, the headline statistics are pretty good. Women have made huge strides over the last 40 years and it will not be long before they make up the majority of solicitors, while black and minority ethnic (BME) lawyers are over-represented in the profession in proportion to the population as a whole.

But this only tells part of the story. The LSB notes that much of the work has focused, successfully, on entry level. For example, only a quarter of law firm partners are women, and a mere 3.5% of partners in the biggest 150 firms are BME. "The anticipated 'trickle up' effect has not materialised," it says. There is also evidence of significant pay differentials, as well as concern that the impressive BME statistics mask significant under-representation for some groups, such as African-Caribbean men and Bangladeshi women.

An appeals court panel has reversed the murder conviction of a mother accused of driving her teenage son and his friends to a Southern California park where a 13-year-old rival gang member was stabbed to death.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal panel ruled 2-1 on Monday that jurors in the case of 33-year-old Eva Daley were given an "impermissibly ambiguous" jury instruction during the 2008 trial.

Associate Justice Laurie D. Zelon wrote that case records don't show the jury based its verdict on a legally valid theory, so the conviction should be reversed.

Daley had been convicted of second-degree murder for the 2007 death of Jose Cano.

Prosecutors argued that Daley wanted revenge because Cano allegedly stabbed her son six months earlier.

As the Senate prepares to vote on whether Elena Kagan should fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, there remain a substantial number of other vacancies in the nation’s lower federal courts that urgently need filling.

Currently, there are about 100 vacancies in the lower federal courts. The American Bar Association says the lack of judges is affecting the efficiency and fairness of the justice system.

ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm said, “Our courts are already terribly strained at the federal level because of the caseload and the workload, and when you’re a hundred justices down…that’s a big gap.  We have speedy trial rules that require them to put criminal cases first.  As a result, all of the civil proceedings are put off and there is a real gap in terms of a significant delay as a result of the vacancies. It is edging toward a crisis not to have a full bench.”

Even if all the vacancies were filled, said Lamm, a significant number of new judgeships would still be necessary to handle caseload growth.  In fact, the Judicial Conference of the United States is recommending 67 new permanent and temporary judgeships. 

Beyond the existing 100 vacancies, more than 20 additional judges have announced that they will retire in the next several months. Since the start of the 111th Congress, President Obama has made 78 nominations to fill the empty seats, and the Senate has confirmed 36 of the nominees.  

Lamm noted that most nominees have moved through the Senate with little dissent and little delay.

When they finally are scheduled for a vote by the Senate, Lamm commented, “None of them have in fact engendered huge debate on the floor of the Senate….  No one has seen a pattern of inappropriate people being nominated; it is simply very slow and it really needs a full bipartisan effort to move these nominations. And quite frankly, it is becoming urgent,” said Lamm.