that, and they've said that on the basis, as I understand it, of what their members are telling them. According to them, their members have said no pretty much universally. However, there may be solicitors who may indeed take part. I don't think that it's the case that we can exclude the possibility that there will be solicitors who will be prepared to participate in a boycott. Those are issues for the members of the SSBA and the other independent professionals that we regularly have. However, we cannot compel people to do work. That's not the way the system works. I don't know that we can say that there will definitely be a boycott. That is a question that would have to be directed at the SSBA. I have to say that it's a high risk. The strength of feeling across both sides of the profession, the Law Society and the Faculty of Advocates, there is a strong sense of concern specifically about the single judge pilot. One of the advantages of an independent referral bar is that it has a different relationship with the accused person, because my client is not the accused person but my instructing solicitor. We have the cab rank rule. It means that if you come along with a set of papers for me, it doesn't matter how unpleasant to the subject matter or whatever, the cab rank rule ensures that you will be able to instruct an advocate as far as that's concerned. Many of my members have expressed such strong views. If they declined to take instructions, that would have to be referred to the Dean of Faculty because I don't have the luxury of declining instructions. There might very well be members who say that I'm not doing it and they will live with the consequences of that. As in a disciplinary consequence potentially. Correct. That's why it's the Dean. As the President of the Criminal Bar Association, I don't have a disciplinary function. That would be the Dean of Faculty. Through advice from the Dean, I have issued guidance to our membership about how they stand as far as that's concerned and that it isn't a luxury that is shared with solicitors who can choose who they represent and who they don't. Last week, we heard from rape victims who waived their anonymity and mostly had a pretty terrible experience of the courts and the wider justice system. I asked them if they backed the proposed jury-less rape trials and I think their answers were quite surprising. I don't think that the proposal is a good idea. That would definitely have put me off. Had that been a thing before I reported what happened, I would have reported it. Sarah Ashby said that having a single judge is not, in my opinion, the way to go. A third one, Hannah Steaks, was a bit more nuanced but said that there's something to be done on that but I'm concerned that if a case was heard by a single judge and they were biased, there might be more reasons to worry about a missed trial. That position is at odds with Saved Rape Crisis Scotland and others. I think that sometimes we are falling to the trap of believing all victims because one and all experiences are universal. Are you surprised by the quite strong views that were expressed last week by those victims? Have you had any indication from behind-the-scenes discussions and lobbying and so on whether there's any movement from the Scottish Government on this particular issue? I'm surprised or not. I suppose that nothing surprises you, ultimately. It's not unreasonable for people to have different views and you would expect that. I would be interested to know whether their view would be the same if it was a panel of individuals hearing the case rather than a single judge because there is a great benefit in having a corporate decision. There's no doubt about that. There's something that would be lost by not having a number of people making a decision. These decisions in these cases are not easy. These cases are very stressful and having more than one person making the decision would be a good thing. It doesn't necessarily have to be the case, for my part, that it's a choice between a jury and a single judge. There is the possibility, at least, of having a panel of judges. It wouldn't necessarily have to be all of them at senator level. You could have a high court level judge and a number of others who were drawn from other areas to make the decision. There would be a lot of benefit from that. That would water down the potential for bias and the idiosyncratic nature of one person making these decisions. Have any of you picked up any sense from the Scottish Government in the face of all the opposition that there might be some movement on that? I don't think that we have either. The faculty have told us that there is no single feature of the proposed court that could not be delivered already rapidly. Law Society Scotland has said that the establishment of a specialist division in the existing courts would be quick and paraphrasing quicker, cheaper and as effective than the proposed new courts. When I put this to Lady Dorian a couple of weeks ago, she said that we need to, and the quote is, seize the opportunity to create the culture change from the ground up and the failure to do so by resulting in the same conversations in 40 years' time. I don't want to put any of you in the position of murmuring a judge, but are you persuaded by the Lord Justice Clark's argument about this? I don't know who would like to comment on that. I think that it might not come as a surprise that we continue to have the reservations that we have all talked about this morning. I think that we understand why the Lord Justice Clark is looking for that kind of change. I am not convinced that it will deliver that that is the solution to the problems. Your earlier questions about our surprise or otherwise at the responses that you had, I think that I would just refer back to the fact that the working group led by Lady Dorian that she acknowledged last week was divided on this question. It is a big question and it is attracting a wide range of views, many of which it has to be said are not positive. We all understand and recognise what Lady Dorian is trying to do, but we remain unconvinced across the profession. We have heard from the academics earlier that there is a significant lack of research in Scotland around a lot of those matters. Professor Shelf Thomas' view is that the judicialist rape trials would therefore be at best premature. Those who support the measures, including Lady Dorian, say that that will allow for the collection of evidence. The academic in turn then responds and says that without any existing evidence or research, how can you possibly measure what you are trying to measure with the new body of evidence that will be yielded from this pilot? I mean, do you think that we should get more evidence? I know that John Swinney made reference earlier too. It is not unusual to hear the call for more evidence but this does seem particularly important given the radical changes that are being proposed and the significant lack of evidence that exists. Do you think that there should be much more evidence done before we embark on this? I do not think that I would differ from what you heard from the academics, that the evidence is not conclusive one way or another from what research we do have. More research is always a good thing but I think that one has to recognise Mr Swinney's point about that as well. I would refer back to the concerns that we all have about the measurement. How are we going to measure? We have changed the system. We are about to introduce a ton of other changes at the same time. How are we going to know? How does that bring us more research? We are not comparing apples with pears. We are looking at some very different systems. We do not have a baseline that says, here is what we have at the moment. How is that going to change it? In addition, it was only autumn last year that the new rules were brought in, in which judges are instructing jurors about rape myths. We do not know what effect that has yet had. That is certainly a view that we have. Many of the positive changes that have been made, which we welcome, are in the main. The reality is that we have just not had enough time to bed in, as is our view at the moment. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I have a number of questions about your submission. I want to start with the specialist court. Lady Dorian's report suggests that it should be a division of the High Court. If it was a division of the High Court, perhaps we would not need all this other exchange about rights of audience, whether the sheriffs can sit. Do you think that the Government has overcomplicated this by what it has put in the legislation? If there is an overcomplication, it is the fact that you are creating another level in terms of the criminal justice system. I understand that you are moving from three to four.  Those are all the courts. You are bringing in this brand new court. There is definitely a question about specialisation, which can take place either in the High Court or in any court, but particularly what was recommended to the sheriff's solemn court for all cases on indictment, then there is always going to be a question around, is this the best way forward? Does this create more confusion in the system? You are describing a hierarchy of courts where you do not see the sexual offence court as put fighting for in the bill. In section 45, the bill says on cause shown that one case can be transferred to the High Court of the Sheriff's Court. Does that speak to what you are really saying, which is that the fact of section 45 indicates that the sexual offence court would be a lower court than the High Court? It would seem to be. When the High Court is Scotland's highest court, as in the High Court, I know the provision in the bill to transfer out of the sexual offence court and into the sexual offence court. I must say that it is quite confusing. I appreciate that creation has been done with the best will, but it is whether or not it can be done in a way that keeps that separation of the High Court and the Sheriff's Court. I made the point earlier about right of audience. It is the first time, as I understand, that you would have a court where, if you are asking a solicitor, you would have a right of audience. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It depends very much on the offence. Simon Daryl? I do not think that I have anything to add to that. The division of the High Court sounds more attractive to me, as opposed to the proposal. Anything to add? I'm hoping my view is clear in that it's worthy of being tried in the High Court, and if you're going to step it down below that, I don't see the justification, unless it's purely financial. I don't reject the fact that financial decisions are important decisions, but that doesn't seem to be the way it's being couched. If that's a hidden part of it for some proponents of the bill, then I very much regret that, because it's an offence worthy of being in the High Court and it should stay in the High Court. Last week I specifically questioned the Lord Advocate and Lady Dorian on the inclusion of the indictment of murder in this specialist court. I find it extraordinary, but I've not been a practitioner. It would be helpful if you wanted to give a view on that. As a layperson, I'm thinking to myself of murder as a plea of the crime for a reason, even if it's a sexual element. I'm concerned, and the crucial element to this is, of course it could still be prosecuted in the High Court under the bill, but a Lord Advocate could choose to prosecute murder not in the High Court under this bill, and if he'd want to comment on that, I'd appreciate it. As I understand it, that was not one of Lady Dorian's recommendations. Standing that the bill was drafted would allow for a charge of murder. As I understand, the bill is not just a charge of murder, but any other non-sexual offence type, so you could have a situation where someone breaks into a house, there's a rape, there's a murder, there's a setting fire to the house and there's a stealing the car. I know that that sounds a little bit farfetched, but in theory that's the type of case that could be allocated to the sexual offences court because it has at least one charge, which is of a sexual nature. And even if that charge is dropped, in the other cases, the other charges, rather, on the indictment, can remain in the sexual offences court. A progressive step to take this to have a situation where murder goes into this other court. My comments earlier on, possibly prosecuted by a procurator fiscal deputy, that's not a progressive step. That means that in the High Court it would be an advocate deputy, but in another court it could be an advocate deputy or somebody, a procurator fiscal, in other words. In the second year of her traineeship, so a year out of university. Next, I want to ask you about section 39.6, which allows the Scottish ministers to amend by regulation both the definition of sexual offences at section 39.5 and the list of sexual offences at schedule 3. That does give me cause for concern, specifically since I think the Justice Committee of the Parliament 2009 did the reform of the crime of rape. It seems extraordinary that we wouldn't have primary legislation for changes to that, but anyway, I thought I'd ask you to speak to that. We think that any changes to what's a sexual offence should be a matter for the Parliament. That should be on the face of the bill. Any comment on why the Government would want to include such a profession in legislation? I wouldn't want to comment on that, but certainly the society's position is that that should be primary legislation. The same is the case for section 55, which is procedures of the court that would be done by regulation. Again, I made the point earlier about the fact that section 55 ties in a high court procedure to the procedure of the sexual offences court. Against a background of if there is an appetite for a new court, then to make it a new court, what will be this one procedure? We asked this question about victims having access to their advocate deputies' legal representatives. It is loud and clear that we are, with one survivor who had a positive experience, and that seemed to be where she had a meeting before and after and during the trial. I'd like to ask Tony Lennon. Would the profession have any objection to reforms around this, or what is the view of some advocate deputies? Do it, some don't. Some just go straight to court and don't talk to the victims and others don't. Is there a need to prescribe that more in your view? I think it is always going to be a good thing if you have an advocate depute who will engage with the complainers and principal witnesses. I think it's also a good thing if the defence will do that, but at the moment there's no obligation on them to do so. So going back to the commission situation, it might be possible to have a situation where it is expected of all of the lawyers to engage with the complainers beforehand because I'm certain that only good will come from that. It can only serve to improve, to reduce their apprehension and to improve their engagement and experience. But whether you would legislate or not on that, I don't know the answer to that. You wouldn't see objections from the profession if, however you would legislate for it, that changed the experience of victims that would be a requirement for the victims to be able to speak. I know I've got colleagues who don't want to do it, so I can't say to you that I am sent here by the profession to say. So I can give you my view about it and my view is that I think it is beneficial and I would do it. I think it's probably incumbent on me to come back to that resourcing question again and say that if additional obligations are placed on the defence in particular, then I suspect the answer will be, that's fine. I don't think that there will be a principled objection to that, but how is that to be paid for? That is more work at a time when they are already struggling. Forgive me for not understanding this. If I misunderstood it, in the case of defence, presumably the accused would have access to the lawyer or solicitor that would be engagement with the accused, so there wouldn't be a requirement for any change, but in relation to prosecution, because of the principle of the prosecutor prosecuting the public interest in not acting on behalf of any victim is the system, that is where there is this question of is it appropriate for a victim to discuss with the prosecutor the prosecution of the case and understanding of the case? I'm no longer, I have been a prosecutor for many many years, but I don't prosecute in the high court currently. The position when I was prosecuting was that you could speak to the complainer and go over various things, you wouldn't necessarily go into a huge amount of detail but you would try and put them at the complainer at her ease. The problem is that if specific matters are needed drawn to the attention of the prosecutor who is conducting the case, the complainer might have not the same point of contact or as good a point of contact as he would like. I don't think that this is a matter for legislation, I think that it's just a matter of practice, I think that it's something that prosecution authorities can lay down as a way of improving the communication that takes place. I think that dovetailing it with having independent legal representation is where this is going and is a welcome development clearly. I don't really see it as a resource issue to be honest, it seems to me to be good professional practice to build up a rapport with the person you're about to lead in evidence and spend a bit of time with them. If there are specific matters about the case that need to be drawn attention to the person, that may or may not happen in one of these meetings and it's maybe something that needs to be dealt with at an earlier stage and independent legal representation may help that more. I have the final question for anyone, but I thought that I should ask you first, since you've got a different perspective, Simon, on the single-year judge. Given what's been said about the experiences that victims might have in front of a single judge but not withstanding that you might prefer a panel of judges rather than... But we're talking about where there's no jury. Would there be a need for both, a specialist court? A specialist court is about trauma-informed practice and making sure that the jury understands that there are myths around the crime of rape and so on. If there is a single judge, why do you think we'd need both a specialist court and a single judge arrangement? It just seems to me that one might cancel out the other. I don't know if they would cancel each other out. The benefit of having a judge decision as opposed to a jury decision and, as I say, I'm in favour of corporate decisions is that you get a reason decision. You're not going to get that from a specialist sex court. That's not going to come from that. That will only happen if you have a panel of judges dealing with the matter. Trauma-informed, you can instruct a jury about that, to what extent they take that on board and is an open question, I suppose, but at least you'll improve matters by having... If you train the judges in trauma-informed and they are required to do that, then that's certainly an improvement worth making for sure. I want to address the following from that, which is just looking at trying to understand the legislation before us and all the possibilities. It seems to me that it is possible to create a specialist court, as in the bill, which we can decide where you see that in the hierarchy, but there could be different levels of representation, different rights of audience, and sheriffs appointed by a Lord President can sit as a judge in the specialist court, but there's nothing to see the pilot wouldn't be running in the specialist court. It's supposed to be a high court. Is that fair to see that? In other words, the specialist court wherever it sits with national jurisdiction is not the high court. We could have a sheriff appointed by the Lord President and we can have solicitors or any other, no baron solicitors representing accused persons in the specialist court, and a single judge all at the same time. That's possible under this legislation. That's a very good question.  I understand that it can sit either in the high court or in the sexual offences court. If it sits in the sexual offences court, in the case of rape, because of the provisions, a solicitor could not represent the accused in the sexual offences court. What you have is the pilot in the sexual offences court, and the court can be presided over by a sheriff who has never presided over a rape case, who has applied to become a judge of the sexual offences court, and the Lord President may be happy with that and affords him or her that position. It is then a single judge in the sexual offences court, and you are running this pilot where that decision is being measured. The pilot is in itself, we talked about research earlier and about whether we have too much research or more research, but the pilot itself is research.  This is not something that has been done in the abstract. This is going to be with real cases, contrary to the position of other jurisdictions or other common jurisdictions. There is nothing on the bill, and I come back to the question about it all in regulation that there seems to be nothing about whether the consent of the accused is going to be required before the pilot can operate. It is advocated that there will be no need for consent of the accused. When they rolled out the public defence solicitors offices, however many years ago that was, there was an initial reluctance for people to go there. What the administration did was say that if you are date of birth, if you are born in January or March, then you are diverted in the custody court from your lawyer of choice to the public defence solicitors office. I think, because I had some involvement in the pilot delivery project sitting in place of a colleague, I think it's anticipated that they will, if you're born in January or March or December or whatever, then you're in the pilot and that's it. It's not an opt-in. That's one of the problems I had with it, is that you're forcing people then into an experiment which could change the course of their lives, and there'll be nothing experimental about 10 years in jail. There'll be nothing experimental about a life on the sex offender's register, and if in due course it's decided this was not a great way forward, that's not much comfort to them. So there is a real problem with the fact that, as things stand, it's not proposed that you opt into it or you agree to go into it, you will be forced into it. Interesting, I don't know if it's connected, but section 45 on where the case is tried allows an application of the accused for it to be heard in a different court. It's absolutely limited, and it's in the guidance notes to the bill that it's only whether it fits the criteria. That's the only basis. You can't say because in the particular circumstances I don't think it suits the interests of justice, there's no provision for that. It's just whether it's rape or attempted rape, and if it's not, then you can move to get it out. I can't see how in practice you would ever find yourself using that, because it's obvious it's either in or out in terms of its subject matter. So there is no scope for it to come out. I think that the intention of the bill is something like that. Just by completing this on section 45, so section 45 allows a prosecutor or defence to say that they want you to be heard in the specials court, they want you to be heard in the high court or the sheriff court. Given what you've said about what evidence you've given the committee already, to me it sounds like where there are rules at the moment, where cases can be heard, there'll be no rules at all, and in fact, these provisions would give the prosecutor's defence almost like they'll just work it out amongst themselves. At least legislators have the confidence, if you're concerned about it, to know the certainty of what cases will be heard in which courts. So if we passed this bill, there would be no way in it that it would be pliarly a matter for the court system. Is that fair, where cases are tried? It seems to me that if you have the pilot operating in either court, then I'm just sort of thinking of this through your another situation, where if the decision is to have the case in the sexual offences court, even though it's the pilot, I'm just interested in the interaction of the pilot and the sexual offences court and whether there can be an application or there can be a transfer from the sexual offences court back into the high court, or into the high court rather. Or be it as part of the pilot. That appears so, because section 45 says on course showing the prosecutor's defence or even the sole application of the accused can ask for a transfer to another court. But it would still be the pilot. Thank you, thank you very much. Fulton MacGregor. Thank you, good afternoon to the panel. My questions are around the jurialist's pilot as well, and I know what has been quite widely covered a bit. I do want to just ask your opinions on what you think the pilot should look at and assess, because we heard in the last session that such a pilot would be further down the line. I think it's sort of remit in its considerations, we need to be given more thought. And I know that that is a job for government, for politicians to mostly look at, but given your expertise in the area, I'm wondering if you've thought about what sort of parameters you think it should look at in terms of is it making the system better for victims and witnesses and accused, or is it not? And I can back the point that Russell Finlay made earlier, which also I had made in the last session, and that was that I think there was an element of surprise in terms of some of the survivor's evidence last week in terms of this particular area. That was around a judge lead, a single judge. There was more reluctance to that from the witnesses than I'd perhaps anticipated being the case. And so therefore, I'll ask what I asked in the previous session to the academics, what role do you think should be given to victims and witnesses within the pilot, in the assessment of the pilot, and I know we're coming to the end of the session, so I don't need everybody to answer if you don't want to, but quite happy to take nods to see who wants to come in. Very interesting to hear from Mr Finlay about the experiences of people who spoke to you last week, and I imagine, if I'm allowed to do so, that that relates to what will be the make-up of the court, so the fact finder is going to be, and that's a point previously made in the submissions, it's going to be somebody my age or older, it's probably going to be a man, it's definitely going to be somebody university educated, and it might be that that's what inspires a lack of confidence in the people that spoke to you in the session that you're referring to, because I wasn't aware of that prior to. So it is interesting to hear that, and the particular point would be if it's going to act as a deterrent to people to coming forwards, then you're never going to know that that's a problem, because you're never going to hear from those people. But that is the principal ill, or one of the principal ills, that this whole process I thought was trying to be designed to cure is to allow people who have suffered wrong to come into this process and be helped through it, whether by ILR or by evidence on commission or by whatever. But if you've got a situation where the people that it's designed to help are saying, I wouldn't have fancied that, I wouldn't have come into it, that should set the alarm bells clanging from the point of view of people who are thinking that this is a worthwhile vehicle. I have to say, having been involved in the debate for the last two, three years or however long, I think for a lot of people, jury list trials is an article of faith rather than an interesting academic exercise of research, because the points made earlier on were that you don't really have anything to compare it to, so what are you going to do with it? And I think that my impression over the last few years of being involved in it is that there are some people for whom this is a grail, and they will go towards it and will do whatever is necessary to achieve that grail rather than the job that you have to deliver, which is how do we actually make progress? It's not just about photo opportunities with vulnerable groups, which feel great from your point of view. It's not about that. You are tasked with improving the actual experience of these people, and so if it doesn't matter how vocal the minority is, if it is a minority who want jury list trials, who want to take citizen jurors out because they, according to them, don't have the wit to understand what's a right with and what's not, if at the end of that process you've got people who are not even going to take the first step into it because of it, you really do need to think why are we doing it, and if you can't answer the question of why are we doing it because of the research and the evidence, then don't do it. Much of what you've said there points to the need for the pilot, and I think that the pilot is key in that, and perhaps when M.Dale's wants to come in and answer to that, I suppose that's what my question is getting at here, because we have given this whole section a good end today, but it's around about the pilot. If the Bill, if, as a committee in a Parliament, we have to pass this Bill, what do you think with this provision intact? What do you think we should be doing around the pilot? What are your expertise in the area? What do you think we should be looking at? One of the academics, Professor Charmers, said that one of the things that they think we'd be looking at would be the conviction rates, but as we've heard from Pauline McNeill when she went back to him on that, said Bill, actually the Government, I've been saying that isn't, I mean, even if the Bill, so where do you think something like that should fit into any pilot? What should we be looking at? What should the pilot be trying to assess? My starting point is that one has to remember has already been mentioned. This is not truly a pilot. We're talking about live cases here, people who will, as others have mentioned, whose lives will be permanently affected if at the end of the pilot we decide that it was a very good idea. That is a concern. We use the word pilot here, but what we're dealing with are real-life cases, which, as we understand it, will not be optional. You will have to go into it, whether you like it or not. I think that that is a concern. I acknowledge entirely what Ms McNeill said about the conviction rates and whether or not they will be used. I think that it's bound up in the whole concept of what we're doing here. So much we have heard about the not-good experiences at all that so many complainers have, but it's very difficult to see how you can disassociate conviction rates as some part of what we end up looking at. It might not be the Government's stated aim, but it's still bound up in it somehow. I don't know how you separate it, to be honest. At the risk of causing offence to others, I'd be astonished if it's not about conviction rates, at least in substantial part. I think that Professor Chambers is absolutely right. That's what it's about. I think that we've heard evidence today that tells us that we don't know how to measure that very well at the moment. For my part, it shouldn't be about conviction rates, although I think that if you did have a pilot, you would want to know what the outcome would be in respect of convictions, but that's not the reason for doing it. It sounds as though there is a need to properly analyse the data in relation to convictions. One of the interesting things from the evidence this morning was that the problem in England seems to be the number of cases that never get to trial. So, when you're looking at conviction rates, you're measuring a very small number of cases, which presumably have a good chance of succeeding because they've got to a particular stage. You need to get a grip of that and make sure that whatever is being analysed is being analysed properly. That's key to the whole thing. You would want to know whether there is a difference, but you need to know whether there is a relevant difference or a difference that you can actually properly measure clearly. The reason for doing it isn't to improve the conviction rate. For my part, I don't think that that shouldn't be the motivation. I don't think that you can necessarily tell whether or not there would be a different outcome in relation to convictions. It's perhaps the case that some cases where there would be a conviction would be acquittals and other cases in which acquittals would be convictions. That's possible. The question that you asked was what is it that should be looked at? If it's the complainers experience, again, a measure of that and how that can be properly analysed is needed before you embark on the project. You have to see how we're going to measure whether the complainer is happier with that experience than they would be with the current arrangements, and that needs to be thought about how you actually measure that. You will be able to say to a complainer, hopefully, here's why there was an acquittal. You can't do that really very easily at the moment. What are we actually going to do? How are we going to measure it? If it is the truth that conviction rates don't matter in this, if that is the truth, then what you're looking for is an improvement of their participation in the process and a reasoned decision. Now, I think it was Professor Thomas who said to you, you can have in the evolving routes to justice, sorry, routes to verdict, instructions to juries, a pathway by which they reach a conclusion, and then you could say to juries, it's now part of your job. We're not going to interview each of you, but you have to identify. We give you a flowchart of how you might reach a conviction or you might reach an acquittal. Tell us simply the nodes in that flowchart, and so you achieve that from an existing jury. If you're not worried about convictions, if that is the truth of the proponents behind the bill, then you've got a situation where you achieve what you want to achieve, what you do not then have as a revolt within the profession, which itself is justified by many on the basis that the public are not behind you in this one. The bill itself is a victim in witnesses' bills, so I was trying to figure out what you've come on to say there that's about what you should be looking at as the experience of victims in witnesses. I think why, you know, not putting aside some of the evidence that we heard last week, the Russell family and I have both mentioned. I think why most of us in the government have been convinced by a single judge on these trials is to try and make things better. So I would give you this opportunity, as my final question, convener, to tell us what do you think victims in witnesses, so not accused in this case, not the legal profession, not anybody else in the Procurate of Fiscal or anybody else, what would victims in witnesses lose by there not being a jury? Victims in witnesses, what do they lose? Or complainants, as you've been referring to them. What do they lose without a jury? Diversity is part of it. A single judge or even two or three judges are not going to give the diversity that will exist on most juries. A non-diversity in the strict sense, but in a life experience diversity. So when complainers, by and large, are 1920, 26, whatever, you're not going to get anybody sitting who has shared their life experience because I don't know what the youngest judge is just now, I'd be surprised if it was someone younger than 52 or something like that. So that's what they lose. They lose the ability to look across and see that there are people on the jury who are of an age with them, have lived life presumably through the years that they have. That's what they lose. That, I think, tracks into the point that you told me about earlier on where you have people who have been through this system who say, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't want to do it with presumably someone who looks like me or Sheila or whoever sitting there because that's somehow off-putting. That's what they lose. We talk about a jury of their peers. Are they looking out and seeing their peers? If they're not, is that what's putting some of those victims that you heard from last week off? Can I just take a slightly dissenting note to all of this? I'm not sure the juries are of the peers of the person being accused or the person making the complaint. The profile of the jury is just a random thing and sometimes it may reflect the profile of the complainer in this case because you were talking about complainers and sometimes it may not. It just depends. There will be a loss of diversity. You can't get away from that. That cannot be a point realistically because the one thing you can be sure about is that when you take juries out of it, it will definitely not be a jury of their peers. That's an absolute given. You will have someone sitting there who earns £182,000 a year and all the rest of that whereas at the moment you've got 15 people. There might become 12 but you've got 15 times the chance, 12 times the chance of having a direct comparison on that jury. So you'll avoid.  Never had it. I've never seen it. So you will have somebody of your gender there to take a decision in your life. If it's just me sitting there, then chances are you won't. On that note, if I can maybe just start to pull things together. I've got a supplementary from John Swinney, the briefest supplementary, and then I still have Katie Clark who would like to come back in. So if the panel can just bear with us. My question follows directly on to this point because Mr Darrow has told us earlier on that he appears in cases in front of judges and it's an analytical experience if I can express it that way. Is there something philosophically wrong with that concept? Because what I've heard, Sheila Webster and Mr Lennon have just talked about the importance of being judged by your peers, although I can't imagine there's many. If juries are selected from the range of population, there's going to be a lot of 50-year-old men and 60-year-old women on juries looking at sex cases involving 18 and 20-year-olds who frankly, in my humble opinion, have grown up in a different world to the one that we're now living. I speak as a just about to be 60-year-old man so it's full disclosure here today. Is there something philosophically? I'm struck by the point that Mr Darrow made earlier on that his cases are heard by a judge and that's fine, everyone says that's okay. What's wrong with it in these cases? I struggle to understand the foundation of what you say because what you're describing is a criticism of juries because there might be older people on them? You're saying that they're peers and I'm saying that if I'm put on a jury to hear a case involving a sexual assault involving an 18-year-old, I'm living in a different world. But that's exactly my point because you would be the single judge. You would be someone of few range. No, but my point is that Mr Darrow has put on the record that he's able to stand in front of a judge and get an analytical experience and a statement of reasons as a consequence. And I'm just asking the question, is there something philosophically wrong with that? There is. So practical differences, that's a balance of probabilities not proof beyond reasonable doubt. It doesn't have to be. Okay, we'll hear from Mr Darrow in a second. We'll look forward to it. First of all, it's a balance of probabilities not beyond reasonable doubt and secondly, the consequences are quite different. You're not sending someone to prison for life on the basis of that. Mr Darrow? The philosophical point deals with the problem that arises from a singularity of decision maker. I won't bore you all with what I've said in writing, but I've got a real problem with the fact and this is shared by my colleagues that you will invest perfect trust in every single decision maker in that situation because I have a problem with that. The judges and sheriffs are composed of lawyers like me and my colleagues and I know that we share the diversity of personalities that I suspect you share in Parliament. You are not created and cracked out of a mould nor are lawyers. You have a situation where the fact that you sit on the bench and you take the oath does not represent a guarantee of an absence of hidden bias but also an absence of character defect because you have recent examples of people who have clearly smuggled character defects through the judicial appointments board to end up on the bench. That does happen and that's my problem because at the end of the day when I'm entrusted with your son or brother or whatever and I say that judge there, I've known that judge for 10 years, I've got a problem with that judge because whatever and I make that point in this as I've travelled the land in all of my years. I go through courts where you have convictors, Sheriff X, Convictor, Sheriff Y, Heavy Sentencer, Sheriff Z, Light Sentencer or whatever and I have to say to your son and then you were stuck with this person.  That's somebody who has gone through the whole process. That's somebody who could be sitting on the bench in the trial of whoever it is I'm entrusted with defending and it's one person I've got no way around that. So philosophically that's my problem, that's my problem and the plurality of it and this actually, Simon de Rolo makes that point, it's the plurality of a corporate decision which reassures me about that. So if you want to multiply decision makers and say there's a reason why citizens can't sit there but we're going to give you that plurality, I'll be quiet but the singularity is a real problem. Is there anything philosophically wrong with doing it analytically? No, there isn't in my view. I do have concerns about a single judge because more than concerns, it's much better that these decisions are made in a corporate way. An individual fact finder on their own, it's much harder. You have an opportunity of discussing the evidence with your colleagues, you go over what they've said, you come to a view about whether the person was lying or telling the truth or was reliable or not reliable. The experiences I've had in the civil courts, of course there's a different standard of proof but that's irrelevant because you can apply whatever standard of proof you like to the case that you're dealing with, that's not a significant problem. The other point is that there's no reason in principle why you cannot have a fair trial before a single judge or indeed a panel of judges you can clearly if it's designed properly. It can be done but as I say my preference is very much for a panel. I'm very quickly going to bring Katie Clark back in and if she would like to do so. Very briefly, I wanted to ask about independent legal representation really to put on the record the views of the witnesses and maybe Sheila Webster in particular because she's spoken a number of times about the whole of the judicial process, not just in court. Does she not think, given everything that survivors and rape victims have said about the disempowering nature of the whole process for them, that there's a very strong case that they need advice and legal representation throughout the process so they understand what's going on and that their interests are protected given the adversarial nature of the process that we have in this country? Maybe see if Sheila could respond perhaps briefly because of time. I'll be very brief. I think the law society's position is that we are entirely supportive of independent legal representation. There may be some questions back to that old question of resourcing and how the practicalities all work but the principle we are 100% behind. Thank you. I don't know if you want to bring any of the other witnesses in or not. I don't know if Alan has anything to add to that. I don't think there's much I can usefully add to that. We certainly support the principle for the reasons outlined in our written evidence. Thank you very much. I think you'll all be very relieved to hear me say the words. That brings our session to a close. Thank you very much for attending today. It's been an extremely important and helpful session. That completes this agenda item. Next week we will return to the Victims, Witnesses and Justice reform bill with evidence from the Lord Advocate on parts 1 to 4 of the bill. Evidence from members of the judiciary and academics who can comment on the anonymity provisions in the bill. I ask members if they are content to defer agenda item 3.


From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of Women Transforming Technology. Brought to you by VMware. Hi, this is Lisa Martin covering the fifth annual Women Transforming Technology event. The first time this event has been completely digital coming to you from my home in San Jose. And I'm very pleased to welcome one of the event speakers, the CEO of Be Leaderly, Joe Miller. Joe, welcome to theCUBE. Hi, Lisa, a pleasure speaking with you today. Likewise, so I was looking up some information on you, Joe. You're quite impressive. And I wanted to share that with our viewers. You have dedicated two decades to really helping women advance in their careers into positions of influence. You've spoken with 100,000-plus women in that time and you've developed a roadmap that you published in 2019, a book about. Tell us about that book and some of the really interesting things that you've learned along the way. Thanks for asking. Well, look, the book was really born out of a conversation I had about 15 years ago with a woman, a software engineer who told me that she felt like she was the best kept secret in her organization. And of course, being indispensable in your current role won't move your career forward and she'd become indispensable for doing the type of work that was downplaying her potential. And it started me on this journey of understanding how is it that we as women can end up being the best kept secrets in the organization, that invisible employee, so to speak, but also speaking to hundreds of very successful, very seasoned women leaders to understand how did they advance into the positions of influence that they're in today? And so you got the opportunity through a publisher to formalize those more than 10 years of speaking and workshops and all of the interviews that I'd accumulated over time, all of that expertise that I'd learned from and put it together into my book with the nine steps that women can take to really thrive and advance in their careers and leave a leadership legacy. And what are, give me the first like three steps and the book is Woman of Influence, nine steps to build your brand, establish your legacy and thrive. Give me like the first three steps that we need to be able to do. Well, you know, I think one of the most important ones is to realize that we are all already leaders, we're in that high level executive leadership position or not. And so a first step is just to understand all of the ways in which you're already a leader and to identify your own leadership strengths, which you could do at any career phase quite frankly. From there, it's about understanding what do you bring to the table that can be a unique value proposition to your organization and matching your strengths to work that you are passionate about or care deeply about. But in delivering something that your company or industry or customer base really needs and values. And I call that your leadership superpower. So from your strengths, identifying that niche or superpower and then up leveling that, so taking your personal brand and everything you've learned about your strengths and your value and turning that personal brand into a leadership brand so that people around you start to sit up and pay attention and notice the leader in you, but even more so I think so that you can see the leader in yourself. It's great advice, especially now with the COVID-19 crisis that is, regardless of what industry you're in, if you were someone that has worked from home before, it's completely different now. The uncertainty in everything, whether it's job security or can I get florex wipes is a huge challenge. Do you find that those nine steps are still the same if not even more important in today's climate? I'll leverage what you said and say that they're the same but possibly even more important because if you think about how you were perceived, say two months ago and the value that people around you see in you, well that may have shifted dramatically now that our world has changed and frankly there's never been a time where there's been a greater need for people to step up and bring leadership to the table. And so I really encourage people right now, if you have the time in that busy work life and home life that have become so smushed together, see if you can take a moment or two to step back and think about how has my world changed and what are the really big problems that are emerging or what are the leadership gaps that I could be uniquely built to fill and start to just kind of reinvent and reimagine how you want to be perceived as a leader? Like what's that new value proposition that you have to offer in this changed world that's going to continue changing? I like that re-imagine rethink because even though there's a lot of crisis and challenge going on right now, there are opportunities. So like your advice of encouraging women and men to really reevaluate what it is that you can bring that's uniquely positioned to help however your company is pivoting in this time because there's going to be a lot of change that is probably permanent as a result of this. So how one of the things that I love is talking about the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. And you did a session at WT2 the other day, 90 minute interactive session digitally, that's a challenge. So I'm very impressed and I'm excited to hear about that but you were talking to women about attracting the advocacy of influential sponsors. So first off, describe for our audience the difference between a mentor and a sponsor because I'll be honest with you, I didn't really even know that there was such a thing until a couple of years ago. I love this topic too, Lisa. An article that really piqued my passion and interest in sponsorship is one that appeared in the Harvard Business Review again about it a decade ago. And by the way, the article was titled Why Men's to Get More Promotions Than Women and so that truly piqued my interest because I'm so fascinated by anything that can help women advance in their careers. But look, the article was some authors of a study saying that they'd found that high potential women were over mentored and undersponsored relative to their male peers and that that was one of the reasons that they weren't advancing as much within their organizations. And so I think the key distinction between mentors and sponsors can be understood first by knowing that a sponsor is like a mentor, someone that believes in you but they might see that potential that's unformed or untapped, potential you might not even see in yourself and they're willing to place a bet on your talent and put their reputation on the line to advocate for you and put your name forward and publicly support you. And so they're really putting themselves and their own political and social capital on the line. So compared to a mentor, they do go beyond giving the feedback and the advice in order to bring their accumulated political and social and career capital to move your career forward within an organization. And so look, you know, whereas a mentor might help you skill up a sponsor will help you move up and mentors will certainly talk to you but a sponsor is someone who will talk about you. So if you can imagine, you know, a mentor gives you advice on climbing the ropes on, on, sorry, a mentor will give you advice on, sorry, just lost my train of thought there. Your advice on, on what climbing the ladder? Yeah, yeah, that's, that's right. Yeah. A mentor shows you the ropes there. Found it. A mentor shows you the ropes. Okay. Whereas a sponsor is the one who helps you climb those ropes. And so really what I mean, what a sponsor is like is that rocket fuel for your career, but in a good way. They can really alter your career trajectory and move you forward with new momentum. Can a sponsor be someone that you're currently working for? Yeah, absolutely. And of course, not every manager or leader in your management chain will be a sponsor. If you're lucky, you'll, you'll have one, but it might be a leader in a completely different area of the organization. But I think one of the, one of the practical suggestions that I gave to the participants in my session was start to notice who the sponsors are in the organization around you. Like learn to spot the leaders who have the qualities that make a good sponsor.  Who do I think maybe from that category could become a sponsor looking for sponsors? What is this, what do we need to know about what a sponsor is going to expect of us? We know one of the really important distinctions to know about is that when you can go and ask someone to be your mentor, you really can't ask someone to be a sponsor. In fact, that might backfire, it might have the opposite effect.  And so some of the things that sponsors will look to in you would be, are you able to be committed and loyal to their goals and the goals of the organization? And are you delivering outstanding performance that goes beyond what's being asked of you in your job description and role? But they're also looking for you to bring something truly unique and special to the table. And that goes back to our earlier comments, our conversation about understanding what your strengths are, your technical and your leadership strengths and how you can apply them to bring something truly unique to the organization that differentiates you. So that's one of the things that we can do to start to attract sponsors, which is to do that self-inventory of what can I bring to the table? What problems can I solve? What leadership gaps can I fill? So Joe, let's talk about your 90 minute interactive session that you did digitally for WT2 the other day, given the gravity of the situation that COVID-19 is delivering. Tell me about some of the comments and the questions that you had for women going, all right, in today's climate, when we're not sure about even job certainty, how do I up my chances of finding a sponsor? You know, and I think it speaks to the timeliness of the topic. I think we had more than 300 people join the session. And so one of the things that I love to do is to make it as interactive as I can by having some panelists join who spoke about examples of the sponsorship that they've gained in their career. But we also heard a lot from participants who were sending their comments in via the chat, giving examples of the times when they'd been sponsored, how it began, what the sponsors were able to do to help them move forward in their careers. And then as we went further along in the session, we spoke about the concept of micro sponsorship and how one of the most important ways to understand how sponsorship works is to sponsor someone else. And so we saw just a wealth of examples and comments coming from participants about all the ways that they were declaring they were going to take action by sponsoring someone else in their organization. So a micro sponsorship, that's an interesting concept. Tell me a little bit more about that. Is that, say, I'm a sponsor and I'm going to sponsor someone else or is it, I have a sponsor and I'm going to get another sponsorship from that? Good question. So there's a couple of myths around sponsorship and one is that you do need to be a high level executive who's able to promote someone or create the perfect role for them or give them that high exposure assignment. And that's certainly one way that sponsorship can take place, the big gestures. But one of the executives I interviewed, Millette Brandville said, look, you don't necessarily need to be an executive to be a sponsor, but you do need to have influence. And I think we all have influence. We just might not completely leverage it to the greatest extent we can. So we're leaving our influence on the table. So if you can't sponsor someone in big ways, think about looking for micro sponsorship moments in which you notice a colleague, perhaps whose talent is going unseen or underleveraged and recommend that that person put them forward for an ideal opportunity or it might be something as simple as, when you see someone share a great idea and no one notices, amplify that idea, attach the person's name to it or when someone's being spoken over the top of, say, let her finish. And so we can sponsor in large and small ways. That's what I mean by micro, micro sponsorship. So notice the scope of your influence and use whatever influence you have to be speaking up and advocating for others. I love that. Thank you for that clarification. Were there any concerns right now with all of the uncertainty, the volumes of people that have applied for unemployment? Were there any concerns from the audience in your session about if somebody else has a great idea, will it just highlight that I don't? And will I be in under a bright light of, should we be delivering value if we're having a cost cut? Was that any concern that the woman brought up? Not that I noticed. And by the way, we're 300 people in the session that Chatlog was going through so fast. And if I was lucky, I was able to pluck a few comments to read back to the audience. But I think you're right on target with that concern. I can only assume that a number of people had that concern for themselves. So one of the things that I talked about is the importance of making your value visible. And how you don't want to speak up and amplify and promote every single thing that you do. But we be really strategic about amplifying the accomplishments that align with your aspirations. So speak up and showcase and reveal and make known those high profile results that you're delivering that align with where you want to go in your career. And of course that frees you up to be amplifying and promoting and making visible the achievements of others in the organization. In fact, I think if we care about having diverse and equitable workspaces, we really need to be lifting others up. I love that focus on the visible. Last question in the last few seconds that we have here is how does a company go about building a culture of sponsorship? And how do you see that? That's interesting because a lot of companies have a really fully formed culture of mentorship and they have formalized mentorship programs. On the other hand, there tends not to be so many companies that are having sponsorship initiatives, but those that do typically will attach them to an existing talent or high potential or diversity initiative. And so if you're in a position of influence and leadership and one thing of course to do is be open and transparent about what it would take for you to sponsor someone, but if you're already doing that, take it a step further and champion having an open and diverse and equitable culture of sponsorship in the organization. Talk to other leaders about what that looks like and get involved in those existing talent and diversity and high potential initiatives and champion the idea of adding a sponsorship component where participants are matched to leaders and the leaders have accountability to help produce results in that participants career advancement. I love that accountability. And this is definitely a topic, Joe, that I love talking about mentors versus sponsors. And it sounds like it's one that just needs more and more and more air cover so people really understand what, that there's tremendous value there.  I really appreciate that. We thank you for joining us on theCUBE and we appreciate the fact that you have been able to do this remotely from Iowa. I'm in San Jose. So for Joe, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage of women transforming technology, the digital version 2020. Thanks for watching.


Think Tech Hawaii, Civil Engagement Lives Here. Welcome in Aloha. My name is Mark Schlaufe. I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today we're going to go across a turbulent sea, a turbulent economic sea, and talk with my guest Roger Epstein about building bridges over that turbulent sea. Roger has been working with businesses in China for about 45 years. He has formed a company called the Asia Pacific Group with other American business people to assist Chinese and Americans invest in each other's country. Roger has recently returned from Beijing where he spent several months teaching at Baywai Foreign Studies University Law School and helping the Asia Pacific Group develop its business plan. I've asked Roger to give us his insight on the current and the future prospects for cross-border investment for both China and the United States with each other. Roger, welcome. It's good to see you. Welcome back. How are you doing? Terrific. Thanks, Mark. So nice to be here. Well, there was a notice that came on my internet this morning that stock market plunged again because of tariffs. What's going on? What's going on between China and the United States? What's the economic climate like? Where are we? What's the current status? You know, interesting. I was in China this year, as you mentioned. In February, I went and began teaching for four months in Beijing at this Foreign Studies University, which has a lot of diplomats there. A lot of that, about 70 percent of Chinese diplomats were trained at that school. And so they're all thinking internationally. And the United States has always been a huge focus for not only their lawyers, but the whole school. They do teach 93 different languages there. But I was teaching two classes in legal writing in English using American case law and another class to graduate students on U.S. tax law. So what my perception in the many years, I've been going to China since 1982, Hong Kong since 74. As you well know, since 2011, I've been going twice a year for our lawyers program, where we were bringing lawyers to the United States to stay here for three months, Chinese lawyers. My perception has always been that the United States is the model for China. That's what they want to be. All their development, everything they've done from 1978 when they got off the Communist program and got into what they call socialism with Chinese characteristics and began to let people own property. It's always been about how do we get to where the U.S. is. That's what we want to be. You see people walking around China everywhere wearing T-shirts in English. They can't even understand it, some of them. I had a friend, you know, Kingward Gunn. I had a contest one time, whether his three-year-old son's Chinese was better than my, his three-year-old son's English was better than my Chinese. So that's how important the United States is to them. And my students were shocked, literally, when they began to see Mr. Trump, President Trump, adding these different tariffs on. They were disappointed. They were confused. What's the United States trying to do? What do they want? And what's the goal? And why are they doing this? Because they felt they were a good partner or something like that. Exactly. Their sense was what I would call competition. I would call it business competition. So we want to emulate you. We want to get better. We want to be like you. We want to collaborate with you. We'd like to learn from your technology. You are the master. You are the student. Now that's gone from 1983, when they first started having laws there, to today, 35 years later, they're catching up. But the standard of living in China is not as good as it is here. Yet people are optimistic. And here, our standard of living is higher, but it's going down and people are pessimistic. So what I see is, as I said, I was teaching two classes in legal writing to undergraduates, law school's undergraduate there, and we were using American case law doing this in English. So I'm just trying to give you a feel for... Their goal is to emulate America. Yes. And you know, in history, and there's a number of books recently out on this, about how things change economically. Some country like the United States has been dominant for a long time, particularly since after World War II. We were the supreme economic power in the world and one of the two major military powers and then the major one. And then we can't sustain it forever. So we begin to come down. The Chinese are the new guy on the block starting to come up, and how do we deal with it? There's investment from China and the United States and U.S. in China. Enormous. What's happening to that? Enormous investment. With respect to these tariffs. Well, with respect to the tariff, first of all, the investment in China with the big multinational companies is huge. Everywhere you go, you see Starbucks, you see Kentucky Fried Chicken on every corner. And so our investment there has been enormous. Now the tariffs have had, like I said, kind of a shock treatment. I think this is President Trump's approach to things. When he wants to have a discussion, he slaps you in the face and then he says, well, let's talk now. Yeah. And so hopefully he has a strategy because as you know, everyone advising him said, don't do this. It's a mistake to put tariffs on Chinese goods. If they're things China's not doing, let's sit down and talk to them about it. But that wasn't his program. So he began to put tariffs on in January of this year and then more in March. And one of the impacts in the United States, of course, is that China began to put tariffs on imports. From us to them. Exactly. And the agriculture's taken the biggest hit. U.S. Agriculture. Very, very concerned. In order to mollify them, we created a program where we, the United States government, will give up to $12 billion in support to farmers. The soybean farmers can get something like $125,000 maximum. There's a lot of conditions on it. And that's because the Chinese retaliated with their own tariffs. Exactly. So you say to yourself, as an American, has this helped us? Chinese goods, the prices have gone up, so that hurts the consumer. And a lot of it's technology-type products, too, as I understand it. There's a whole range of products that we've put tariffs on and a whole range of products that they've put tariffs on. And the agriculture industry has gotten hit by far the worst. So I said, we could give back $12 billion to our farmers. And you say, well, but we just cut taxes. And the Republicans keep saying, government is not the answer, it's the problem. And so, how does- That doesn't quite make sense. Doesn't make sense. So, what you hope for is that there is a strategy. Huge tariffs are coming on in January of 2019. And I think it's $200 billion worth of goods that we import from China is going to come on with tariffs up to 25%. So that means the cost of every product would be raised 25% to the consumer. But the G20 is meeting in November of this year and a lot of discussion about leaders of other countries saying, can we get China and the United States together to solve this what everyone is now calling a trade war. And that's because this trade war affects the whole world. Of course it affects the whole world. And the United States and China are the two largest economies in the world. And there's so many spin-offs from everything they do. And it's very, very worrisome that prices are going to go up on goods, that we're going to be prohibited from selling some of our goods in China. China has already adapted Chinese importers. They've adapted, first of all, imports before the tariffs were announced in four brackets so far. I think January, March, July, and September. Just before the tariffs went on, there was a huge surge of buying. And then all of a sudden it dropped off a cliff. And so people know what's going on.   Well, you look for another supplier. So what's going to happen? Are our exporters, our farmers who are exporting something like $140 billion to China, are they going to have other markets if the Chinese find somebody in Brazil or wherever around the world to buy their soybeans? OK, now look, also Chinese investors were coming to the United States. Have you noticed any change in that? And vice versa, Americans making investments in China, have you noticed any change in that? You know, the biggest impediment to Chinese investment in the United States has been the unwillingness of the Chinese to let people get their money out of China. It's very difficult. And if you have a legitimate business, you can go jump through a lot of hoops and get money out. But that's been going on all year this year and some of last year, and continuously off and on. But they've gotten much tougher this year. So that's been the biggest cause. Whether the investments here, not the imports, we know they're going down because the products aren't as competitive. People aren't going to buy as much. And so they're going to look for other markets for their goods. I haven't seen anything that indicates that the investment in the United States is going down. The Chinese still want to invest in the United States? I think the Chinese still want to invest in the United States. I think it's been difficult for them. We've changed the playing field. You know what SIFIUS is? What's that? It's a government organization that looks at whether or not foreigners can buy companies in the United States. Larry Foster is an expert in this for security purposes. And so there's been a number of potential acquisitions. So some of what the Chinese want to do, my basic experience is what they want two things from the United States. They want technology and they want money, U.S. investment. And there's a tremendous encouragement in China for U.S. investment. Coming into China. Coming into China, U.S. dollars coming in and other countries. But the United States of course is the biggest market in the world and we have huge financial institutions and investors. So they want U.S. dollars and they want U.S. technology. They want to grow. And so this trade war that we have going on has not affected the psyche of the Chinese man on the street, if you will, the businessman wanting to make investments, still wants money coming from the United States, still wants to seek out investments in the United States. But the climate, the sea over which they're traveling is a little bit turbulent. That's what I hear you say. Yeah. And I think in the inbound direction for the United States, what I said earlier with respect to my students in particular, not so much in my particular business, because those are close personal relationships, but in my students who were wondering what is going on here, I think there's some of that with many other people in China. So there may be some hesitancy to invest here. Okay. So there is reluctance and maybe after the break, we'll talk about ways to get over that ocean of turbulence. Okay. All right. So we'll take a break and be right back. Happy. All right. Hey, Stan the Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii. And they won't let me do political commentary, so I'm stuck doing energy stuff. But I really like energy stuff, so I'm going to keep on doing it. So join me every Friday on Stan the Energyman at lunchtime, at noon, on my lunch hour. We're going to talk about everything energy, especially if it begins with the word hydrogen. We're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner, how we can make the world a better place, just basically save the planet. Even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore. We got it nailed down here. So we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan the Energyman. Aloha. I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tech. Think Tech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco and me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator, and Energy Dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangelsdorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon, on Mondays, every two weeks on Think Tech. Aloha. Welcome back to Law Across the Sea. I'm Mark Schlaufe, the host with my guest, Roger Epstein. And Roger, we're talking about really your experience in China, your personal experience and what you've encountered from talking with all your students and your personal friends who are in business. And you formed a company called Asia Pacific Group. I'd like to know a little bit more about that. How are we going to weather this economic storm? What is your feeling? How are we going to get through it? How do investors from both sides ultimately get in their ships and travel across that sea and make investments? And then what is Asia Pacific Group about? What's it doing? Okay. Well, I think how we weather the storm could very much depend on the G20 meetings in November. Because if we ratchet up this next 200 billion of tariffs that's supposed to go in in January, it's got to have a huge negative impact on the mindset of everyone. So it's a psychological impact, more also as well as an economic. Well, also, not also. And what I was saying before the break was, look, if you're a Chinese person or you're an American, you've got to start looking for other markets. And other investments. And other investments because, you know, it's like you're not wanted in the United States. And how protective, Trump now says he's a nationalist. How protective does he want to be? You know, other people have put tariffs on steel and various products. Other presidents going back a long ways and Obama put a lot of tariffs on things. But none of those have really worked. You know, in Adam Smith's invisible hand, the marketplace, there's nothing you can do. People want to do business the way it makes sense. Example, China is struggling now as a manufacturer. Everything you see made in China, but now it's starting to move. Why? Because the Chinese have raised the cost of labor. They've raised up their own standard of living. They're beginning to price themselves out of the market. People are going to Vietnam. I had several inquiries about doing legal work for billionaire Vietnamese. Think about that from 1967, 68. So everything moves. You really can't fight it. And prices on products here are starting. Everything that's made with steel is starting to go up. So I don't think it's sustainable. I don't think the trade war is sustainable. I think we got a lot of worries about, you know, we just lowered taxes. We borrowed $150 billion a year for 10 years for a tax break. That's made the, it did have the effect of kicking up the economy, but the economy was already booming. You don't do that when the economy is booming. That's like Econ 101. So I think we got to solve this trade war, or it could get very disastrous. It's not working for anybody. It's not working for anybody, I don't think. And there's no question about China started in 78, and they thought they were the underdogs. I mean, they have moved from poverty. I can tell you, I was there in 1982, and I was there a few months ago, and it's like a whole different world. It's incredible. The standard of living is shot up. The standard of living, the cities, the people you were on, bicycles, and, you know, it was just the third world country, and a lot of poverty. And they're studying, as you say, America. Oh, yeah. You know, I was at Columbia University a month or so ago. You walk around the campus, Chinese is spoken everywhere, everywhere. It's incredible. So they're interested, and they're excited, and they're coming up, but they've got problems. Their manufacturing is now getting too expensive. What they're moving into is a consumer goods. Now their people have enough money to buy goods. So it would be good for the United States to sell their products. My perception last year and this year was everybody wants foreign products. They don't yet trust their own Chinese products. It's a heck of a good time. What is Asia-Pacific Group? What is it about? How did it get formed? What's the idea behind it? Where's it going? What can it do to help us get over this? Well I hope more Asia-Pacific groups can be formed, and we can do some good with it. I practiced law here for 45 years, and when I retired I decided to do a number of things but go into business with a couple of friends of mine who have longstanding, one is a Chinese national born in China, an American citizen, who they found the Zhou Enlai Peace Institute. Zhou Enlai was the number two guy under Mao, maybe you call him the Thomas Jefferson of China, and very well respected, and so because of her connections people kept asking her how do we make investments in the United States, how do we get the United States to make investments here. So we formed this company and we're working with a government essentially of China. The government of China has something called the Ministry of Foreign Commerce, and they allow certain of their executives to form companies and alliances and go into business essentially with other groups. So the Ministry of Foreign Commerce will take us to places where they're looking for US investment or they're looking to change their business ways so they can work in the United States, and they'll introduce us, and then we'll go into partners with a Chinese organization and the Ministry of Foreign Commerce and the Asia-Pacific group, and we'll help them to do whatever they want to do, buy goods, sell goods, acquire companies, make investments in the United States. And there's a number of organizations, a Chinese national business organization has 10, 15,000 members, the largest companies in China. We have an agreement with them that if we find good projects here, good companies to invest over there, we'll talk to them and find some of their members that would be interested. So you set up a network in China is what I hear you saying, a good one because it's in relationship with the government which is important to China. It's more important there.  So the government kind of takes us to these leads for the most part, and then we find that we have a, you know, relationship is so important in China, one she, and trust. And we've seen it all the time. It's hard to trust Chinese people, it's hard to trust Americans. So one of the things we're bringing to the table are people that want to do win-win business, people that want to do business with Aloha, people that not only want to make money, they want to do what's right for the community. How about if I'm an American and I have an investment that I'd like to ask Asia Pacific Group to market? Yeah. How does that work? Well, call us, we're on the, we're on, go to our website, contact us, and we'll talk about it. Are you trying to do that? Is that part of what you folks are doing? Well, we are, we are. We got a lot on our plate at the moment, and we don't want to get too, spread too thin. But we've got this, this, we just signed this agreement when I was in China in May with this Chinese community Chamber of Commerce business organization. And we'd like to start sending them some, some really good potential investment businesses. Again, they're looking for technology, they've got a lot of money that they'll put into it if it's the right technology and we find the right partner. So I don't feel that at this point the tariffs have been so negative that there's any chance that that business will not continue to be available, so things could get worse. It has, it has affected people like your students somewhat, they don't understand why we're fighting. Yeah. But they, they, the business people, I hear you saying, still want to proceed. The seas are rough, but let's, let's try to get in the boat and get over it back and forth. Right. And you know, yes. And you know, most American businesses are still very interested in doing business in China. Businesses will do business if it makes sense. As I said, okay, so here's an example. We've got a company in a town called Laiwu, the whole community, Laiwu is the largest ginger and garlic manufacturer in the world, or in China. I think it's in the world too, but anyway in China. And so we connected them with the people that have Canada dry ginger ale. And it's now Coca-Cola. And so we're trying to, and in Laiwu if you set up a plant there, they give you free land, they give you a tax holiday for 10 years, a lot of incentives from the Chinese government. Now is that going to change if we get into a more serious trade war? I don't know. But I, I think business, unlike government, is always looking for ways to expand. And China still has a lot of growth to go. So business might be more of a globalist society, as opposed to a nationalist. It's interesting, isn't it? It's interesting because business is so influential on our politics today. But on the other hand, do they want to fight or do they want to make money? And I think it's pretty clear that they'd like to expand in sensible ways, make money and continue these relations. China is the engine for Asia. Have you ever heard of the One Belt, One Road? Of course. Yeah. So One Belt, One Road is reaching out to many places all over the world. China is making a lot of relationships. Making a lot of relationships. And we could maybe benefit. And so you say to yourself, if you look back in history, when the small guy comes up and challenges the big guy, what happens? What does the big guy do? You know what the answer is? They go to war. That's what these books say historically, when these, now are we still back in those ages? And maybe war is no longer military war. Maybe it's... Economic. Economic war. Okay. Now, in the minute we have left. We have a minute left. What advice would you give an investor from China, an investor from the United States at this time? What would you tell them? What would you tell them this? People are the same everywhere around the world. The U.S. has a lot of potential. The China has a lot of potential. Find people you can trust. Find people that make sense for you to get into business with. We're going to see more Chinese products coming to the United States, whether there's tariffs or not. We're going to see them. And if you're a U.S. person, look for a good person in China to do business with. Same thing in the United States. There's still lots of opportunities. No matter what happens, the pendulum will swing back. But China is coming up, Asia is coming up, and the United States still is the premier place for technology, business organization, and knowledge. And I think there's a lot of good people on both sides that can work through this as it develops. Roger, thank you very much. I appreciate your knowledge. And it's good to have somebody on the ground who's seen both sides and can tell us from actual experience what's happening and the feedback that you get from people. That's very valuable. I appreciate it. Thank you. Well, it's just my personal experience, but it's... Of course. And that's all we can see it as, and I appreciate that. But it's good to have an insight into that also. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. All right. Aloha. And we will be back in two weeks. Thank you very much.