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The purpose of this paper is to learn about professional employees in the early stage of their careers, particularly, their understanding of competence development and career advancement. Law firms have a relatively low rate of turnover of professional staff when compared with employee flow rates that are standard in other organisations and industries. In law firms, the collective stock of embodied knowledge changes gradually influenced by recruitment cohort phases and employee departures. This paper aims to analyse lawyers employed in a reasonably munificent internal labour market context, seeking to understand their accounts of how their competencies can be developed and how their careers may be advanced.

This paper considers the competences and careers of a group of junior professional knowledge workers employed full‐time in a large law firm and conceptualises their competence development and professional career advancement through an existential ontological conceptualisation using a qualitative interpretive research methodology.

The findings from interviews with lawyers in the Planning and Environment area of specialisation are reported concentrating on employees' perspectives. Lawyers' self‐understanding is strongly influenced by career stage and position in the organisation. Their understanding of work in contrast reveals more individual and idiosyncratic clusters of work activities and distinctive ways of acknowledging and developing technical and professional expertise. They express a preference for a focal group of other people at work selecting from primary orientations to either clients or peers or self.

It is concluded that policy makers, practitioners, and academic researchers all have roles to play in assisting people at an early stage in their career to reflect on their existing expertise, assess current work practices, and develop and pursue strategies for competency development and career advancement.

The aims of this study are to examine the influence of offender age, offender abuse history, crime outcome and attributions for crime on judgments about young offenders.

A sample of 240 British undergraduates was asked to respond to a scenario about a young person who committed a crime, recommend a sentence, and rate the young offender's criminal accountability and legal understandings. Their attributions for crime were measured using the CDS‐II, adapted for observer attributions. The age of the young offender (ten years, 14 years, or 17 years), abuse history (abused or not abused) and crime outcome (victim death or injury) were varied systematically.

Internal attributions predicted participants' beliefs about punishment and sentencing recommendations. Although participants considered the youngest offenders to be less criminally accountable and unlikely to understand the legal process, this did not affect recommended punishment. Attributions of personal control were influenced by abuse history; the behavior of offenders with a history of abuse was considered less within the offender's personal control.

The results demonstrate the types of attributions and information that influence the opinions of jury‐eligible British adults when asked to make decisions about serious offences committed by young offenders.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the common and statutory law governing children's capacity or competence to consent to and to refuse medical treatment is unsatisfactory and to suggest solutions.

Critical legal analysis of the law on assessing minors’ decision-making capacity in relation to legal recognition of their consent to and refusal of medical treatment.

Without legal mechanisms which protect both children and their rights, all children and young people are effectively disabled from exercising age and capacity-related autonomy and participation in decisions affecting their lives. Yet in English law, inconsistencies between legal and clinical measures of decision-making capacity, situations where compulsory medical or mental health treatment is lawful, and tensions between rights and duties associated with human rights, autonomy, best interests and protections for the vulnerable create difficulties for clinicians, lawyers and patients.

As the paper acknowledges in its recommendations, the views of stakeholders are needed to enrich and inform legal reforms in this area.

The paper makes suggestions to amend the law and clinical practice which are original and far reaching. The paper suggests that in order to observe children's rights while protecting them appropriately, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Deprivations of Liberty Safeguards should be applied to minors. The paper recommends the establishment of Mental Capacity Tribunals, similar in nature and purpose to Mental Health Tribunals, to provide legal safeguards and mechanisms to foster the supported decision-making envisaged in recent United Nations Conventions.

The purpose in writing this paper is to highlight the lack of knowledge of many who are involved in capacity assessments, especially non‐professionals such as carers of the learning disabled, and the view that current guidance for capacity assessments does not take into account issues of emotionality.

The approach is to discuss current guidance and practice, and to offer academic criticism and explanation.

The findings include the discovery that the Mental Capacity Act 2005 Code of Practice suggests that healthcare professionals and family/carers may undertake assessments of decision‐making capacity, yet the guidance it provides for their doing so overlooks salient issues. Many of those involved in the daily lives of those, who may lack decision‐making capacity (and thus be seen as legally incompetent) such as the learning disabled, demented, mentally ill and neurodiverse, must decide whether to respect their decisions as competent, or to disregard the decisions on the grounds of incompetence and to act in the person's best interests. As many will lack training in their clinical and legal responsibilities and liabilities, it is crucial that they, and those they care for, are protected by not only an increased knowledge of mental capacity legislation and practice, but also how it may apply to questions of emotionality and neurodiversity.

This paper expands and builds on the authors' previous research into including emotionality in assessments of capacity, and will be of use to practitioners in the field of learning disability, and other psychiatric specialities.

This chapter provides an overview of the importance of cultural competence and how it is developed in some careers by higher education institutions. Included in the discussion is a brief overview of some research and strategies used when attempting to develop cultural competence.

Developing an accurate standard of service quality within professions which require specialist knowledge is not easy. Outlines the measures which have been developed by the Metropolitan Police, the Environmental Health Department of Braintree District Council and parts of the Legal profession.

This paper aims to describe the efforts of a library in developing a systematic approach to its human resource management. The success of these activities has been measured annually and there already is some evidence for an improvement in skills as well as of better motivation towards the work on the library.

The paper takes the form of a case study approach.

Creating a learning organization to emphasize the library's functioning as an expert organization requires allocation of significant resources to the staff training but this investment is repaid in better work motivation.

The paper is based on Finnish experiences.

The paper gives examples of the activities promoting job motivation in a university library organization and improvements in the work environment.

The paper provides tools and experiences for the human resources management function in an academic library.

This paper aims to analyse the current Southern African countries’ archives and records management legislations to identify the gaps and challenges. It is important to assess the role played by National Archives legislations within the preservation of heritage and history; private archives known as liberation archives; the transfer of archives; the disposal and retention of records, access, copyright management and skills; and development of staff.

The study used a qualitative methodology through document analysis, interviews and observation. The sampling of the study comprised representatives from the selected Southern African National Archives (South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana and Namibia).

The key findings revealed gaps of the archives and records management legislations in terms of definitions, transfer, disposal and transfer of records and accessibility. Some of the Southern African countries failed to use archives and records management legislation to promote accountability and governance.

The research is limited to the following countries: Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa.

Archive and records management legislation which has gaps creates problems in terms of effective implementation of archives and records management programmes.

The failure by Southern African countries to revise their National Archives legislations and clarify the role of National Archives will lead to loss of archival materials if not addressed.

Updated archives legislation contributes to the development of effective archives and records management programme.

The purpose of this study was to survey the level of readiness of three universities in Nigeria towards managing their digital records by assessing the e-records frameworks, infrastructures, and structural facilities that are available.

The population of the study was 30 staff of the Registry Department in three Nigerian universities. Questionnaires, oral interviews, and check list were used during data collection. Data were analyzed using frequency tables, simple percentages, and bar charts.

The paper found that universities in Nigeria are not ready to manage electronic records due to weak legislative and organizational frameworks. The paper recommends creation of awareness about e-records management, training of records personnel, adoption of hybrid records management and periodic auditing, provision of sustainable framework and infrastructure, among other things in Nigerian universities.

This study was carried out on only three out of more than 20 federal universities in Nigeria. Therefore, the sample size and geographical spread was inadequate for generalization of the findings.

The paper demonstrates that, without proper planning and adoption of various international standards for records management, e-records created using modern technologies are likely to be inaccessible in Nigerian universities in future and consequently, the ability to remain accountable to the citizens will be compromised.

The study exposed the simple tools and strategies for assessing a university's readiness before embarking on electronic records management in a digital age. The paper will serve as a catalyst to further discussion and research into e-records and archives management in Nigeria. It will lead to other records management initiatives in the library, archives and information management.