Richard Moorhead

@richardmoorhead.bsky.social

7.1K followers 2.8K following 1.1K posts

Law prof in UK, and Australia (Exeter and Monash). Empirical and conceptual work on lawyers regulation and ethics. Especially the Post Office and all who billed her. Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. Plastic Geordie. Novice cello player .. more

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Richard Moorhead is a Professor of Law and Professional Ethics at the University of Exeter. He leads a team working on the British Post Office scandal and that work led to Moorhead’s appointment to the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. He is giving the 2024 Hamlyn Lectures on "Frail Professionalism: Lawyers’ ethics after the Post Office and other cases". .. more

Law 46%

Economics 22%

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Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · Sep 15

Spaundau Bolly

Reposted by Richard Moorhead

Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 1d

I joined @arusbridger.bsky.social and @lionelbarber.bsky.social to discuss my work and the work of Bellingcat, why I don't like Seymour Hersh, and getting verified information out quickly on the ICE shootings.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/podcasts/med...

Bellingcat founder: ‘Playing whack-a-mole with disinformation is always going to fail’

Eliot Higgins discusses the future of investigative journalism with Alan and Lionel

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

Reposted by Steve Peers

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 2d

Typically interesting from @samfr.bsky.social Convincing on Starmer's dissipation, modest but important positives seen in replacements, and pretty favourable on Rayner.

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 2d

New post:

"After Starmer"

The PM will go at some point - even if it drags out for a while - so what would a new leader actually do differently?

And would it be enough to change anything?

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/a...

After Starmer

What would Labour do differently under a new leader?

open.substack.com

Reposted by Richard Moorhead

John Rentoul @rentouljohn.bsky.social · 2d

Fabulous. Pulp covers ABBA’s “The Day Before You Came” www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wd1... HT @ianleslie.bsky.social www.ian-leslie.com/p/centrisms-...

Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Richard Moorhead

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 2d

After Starmer

What would Labour do differently under a new leader?

open.substack.com

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 3d

Oh dear

Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 3d

New on FT website:

Downing Street has refused to say whether Sir Keir Starmer knew Palantir was a client of Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm when they both visited the company in Washington last February — ahead of it winning a £240mn UK government contract.

www.ft.com/content/5bba...

Starmer faces questions over visit to Palantir office alongside Mandelson

Former ambassador was also shareholder in lobbying group that counted US tech firm as a client

www.ft.com

Reposted by Ben H. Ansell, Richard S.J. Tol, Steve Peers , and 6 more Ben H. Ansell, Richard S.J. Tol, Steve Peers, Alison Phipps, Anand Menon, Jonathan Hopkin, Margot C. Finn, James Cameron, Richard Moorhead

Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 3d

Starmer faces questions over visit to Palantir office alongside Mandelson

Former ambassador was also shareholder in lobbying group that counted US tech firm as a client

www.ft.com

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 4d

Dan Dennett wrote a whole thing on surely as a signifier of cant. tis good.

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 4d

Blazing Saddles and Cool Runnings has a sequel...

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 4d

COLPs, Mental Health, Stephen Mayson

I have been away for a month in Australia working and return with some determination to reinvigorate my blogging. Thoughts on the SDT decision on the Carter Ruck case and the High Court decision in the Ashley Hurst case are bubbling under (bad SDT decisions…

COLPs, Mental Health, Stephen Mayson

I have been away for a month in Australia working and return with some determination to reinvigorate my blogging. Thoughts on the SDT decision on the Carter Ruck case and the High Court decision in the Ashley Hurst case are bubbling under (bad SDT decisions beget bad HC ones is my outline take), but in the meantime, I thought it might be useful to share some brief thoughts on three pieces of work that caught my eye.

lawyerwatch.wordpress.com

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 4d

Strangely it was the reference to doing it with paraffin that only really tipped me over the edge

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 4d

5 a day. Thems the rules

Reposted by Richard Moorhead

Joshua Rozenberg @joshuarozenberg.bsky.social · 4d

After months of uncertainty, the government is pressing ahead with its plans to curb trial by jury. Legislation is to be introduced “next month”, a minister says. Sir Brian Leveson expects the bill to be published even sooner, he tells me on A Lawyer Talks.

rozenberg.substack.com/p/jury-refor...

Jury reforms in weeks

Sir Brian Leveson tells me when he expects ministers to publish their bill

rozenberg.substack.com

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 4d

What can I say, the bastards had it coming. The Cold War was still on. Sandwich led insurrection threatened chaos.

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 5d

How wonderful to see his powers undimmed

Omg. WTF is Happening? @lalahaenzy.com · 5d

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue

Reposted by Richard Moorhead

The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 5d

NEW BLOGPOST: Palestine Action: What just happened?

A look at some of the legal principles at play following yesterday's verdicts.

thesecretbarrister.com/2026/02/05/p...

Palestine Action – what just happened?

Yesterday, six Palestine Action protestors were acquitted by a jury of aggravated burglary, following a break-in at an Elbit Systems UK factory near Bristol in August 2024. Three of the six were ac…

thesecretbarrister.com

Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Lawrence Freedman, Christian Odendahl , and 45 more Jonathan Portes, Lawrence Freedman, Christian Odendahl, Richard S.J. Tol, David Brady, Peter Thorne, Gavin A. Schmidt, Wolfgang Crämer, John R. Hutchinson, Steve Peers, Steven French, Mark D. White, Diane Ravitch, Elizabeth Pisani, Melissa Johnson, Linda Martín Alcoff, Brian Medeiros, Todd Landman, Kevin Carey, Jussi T. Eronen, Chris Marshall, Robert Wolfe, Carlos Nunes Silva, Caroline T. Schroeder, Roopika Risam, Stephen D. Murphy, Beatriz Gallardo Paúls, Sara M. Butler, Terri E. Givens, Jason Lyall, Mark Robinson, Jelena Subotić, Glen O’Hara, Ian Loader, Mark Rice, Karen L. Cox, Nathan W. Pino, Rosie Meek, Kathleen Kennedy, Olivier Mannoni, Nancy M. Wingfield, Manisha Sinha, Pam Jarvis, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Juliet Johnson, Virginia Sapiro, Richard Moorhead, François Guesnet

Omg. WTF is Happening? @lalahaenzy.com · 5d

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 6d

Oh boy. My condolences

Reposted by Richard Moorhead

Nearly Legal @nearlylegal.co.uk · 6d

This is just awful. US Attorney has meltdown in Minnesota hearing on Govt non-compliance with court orders on releasing ICE detainees.

The transcript shows a system melting down in the face of massive illegal acts & non-compliance with court orders by ICE

drive.google.com/file/d/1FnY2z7…

I did put in my resignation from the job too, but
they couldn't find a replacement. So I gave them a specific time and -- to get it done. If they don't, then by all mean, I'm going to walk out. And before I walk out, I was able to release another individual, a juvenile. That kind of like a step -- like a barrier. Like, Wait, Julie, stop. You need to go back and get more people out. That's why I'm still here. I am here just trying to make sure that the agency understand how important it is to comply with all the court orders, which they have not done in the past or
currently.

I am here as a bridge and a liaison between the
one that in jail, because if I walk out -- sometime I wish you would just hold me in contempt, Your Honor, so that I can have a full 24 hours of sleep. I work days and night

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 6d

Chortled several times at this. Especially the woke quip. Please now give grades and pithy feedback for our three previous PMs

Reposted by Richard Moorhead

Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · 6d

“it takes 10 emails from me for a release condition to be corrected. It takes me threatening to walk out for something else to be corrected.” www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

Government attorney who told judge in ICE case, 'This job sucks,' removed from detail

Julie Le made the remark while she was representing the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, where federal officers are conducting a massive immigration crackdown.

www.nbcnews.com

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 6d

Costs and complexity a profound structural problem which the courts and now disciplinary tribunals seem unwilling to even soften the edges of by taking abusive conduct more seriously

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 6d

Them cabs gotta get ranked somehow

Richard Moorhead @richardmoorhead.bsky.social · 7d

US a living experiment in how far can lawyers be pushed in the abuse of power (too far) but also how and where resistance occurs or here where someone just breaks.

Daniel Suitor @danielsuitor.com · 7d

This is unreal. An AUSA talking like that in open court is about as close as you can come to a total breakdown. Never heard of anything like it.

SHOCKING FEDERAL COURT MOMENT: DOJ attorney Julie Le, "The system sucks, this job sucks" to Judge Jerry Blackwell who pressed her on why so many court orders are being ignored by ICE/Trump admin. She asked to be held in contempt just so she could get 24 hours of sleep. @FOX9

Reposted by Richard Moorhead

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 7d

‘Our findings suggest that Al-enhanced productivity is not a shortcut to competence and AI assistance should be carefully adopted into workflows to preserve skill formation - particularly in safety-critical domains.’
(HT @williamcb.bsky.social)

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall, Catriona Seth, Richard Moorhead , and 1 more Lesley A. Hall, Catriona Seth, Richard Moorhead, Samuele Ramellini

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 7d

‘Novice workers who rely heavily on AI to complete unfamiliar tasks may compromise their own skill acquisition… We find that AI use impairs conceptual understanding, code reading, and debugging abilities, without delivering significant efficiency gains on average.’
arxiv.org/pdf/2601.20245

Abstract
Al assistance produces significant productivity gains across professional domains, particularly for novice workers. Yet how this assistance affects the development of skills required to effectively supervise AI remains unclear. Novice workers who rely heavily on AI to complete unfamiliar tasks may compromise their own skill acquisition in the process. We conduct randomized experiments to study how developers gained mastery of a new asynchronous programming library with and without the assistance of Al.
We find that AI use impairs conceptual understanding, code reading, and debugging abilities, without delivering significant efficiency gains on average. Participants who fully delegated coding tasks showed some productivity improvements, but at the cost of learning the library. We identify six distinct AI interaction patterns, three of which involve cognitive engagement and preserve learning outcomes even when participants receive AI assistance. Our findings suggest that Al-enhanced productivity is not a shortcut to competence and AI assistance should be carefully adopted into workflows to preserve skill formation - particularly in safety-critical domains.

Reposted by Scott L. Greer, Calvin K. Lai, Cameron Brick , and 12 more Scott L. Greer, Calvin K. Lai, Cameron Brick, Ian Hussey, Max Nathan, Lauren Hersch Nicholas, Nazita Lajevardi, Margot C. Finn, Sofia Stathi, Patrick Präg, Marko Lindroos, Adele Perry, Simon Wiederhold, Claudia Landwehr, Richard Moorhead

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 7d

Are female economists treated differently than males in academic seminars?

These authors wanted to know whether gender shapes how scholars are treated when presenting research.

So they built a massive dataset of 2,000+ economics seminars, job talks, and conference presentations from 2019–2023...