In brief: Heaps is sole Brit invited to US conference

John Heaps, head of commercial litigation in Evershed's Leeds office, was the only British lawyer invited to speak at a US conference in Washington DC last week. At the event, entitled "Civil Justice and the Litigation Process", Heaps explained aspects of the British legal system, highlighting reforms in the wake of the Woolf Report, particularly changing rules of discovery. The conference was sponsored by the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, and up to 200 legal, judicial, academic and business professionals from across the US were expected to attend.