All Law Gazette articles in Archive – Page 1335
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News
Law firms reveal impact of recession in benchmarking survey
Small to medium-sized law firms axed nearly one in 10 staff as the recession bit and profit per equity partner plunged by a quarter, new research shows. However, market conditions have improved in recent months, with firms starting to hire again and revenues expected to remain stable in 2010. ...
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Eversheds to fight employment tribunal bias ruling
National firm Eversheds last week lodged an appeal against an Employment Tribunal ruling that it must pay £123,300 in compensation to a male associate who suffered sexual discrimination during the firm’s 2009 redundancy programme. The tribunal found that former real estate associate John de Belin was ...
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Town hall budget cut fears over local government legal services
Local government legal services will be ‘severely at risk of implosion’ if public sector budget cuts force a decline in professional standards, the new chairman of the Solicitors in Local Government group has warned. Stephen Turner, a solicitor at Kingston-upon-Hull City Council, said maintaining services and ...
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Loose cannon
It’s not that uncommon for lawyers to have an exotic sideline. Readers of this column will know that solicitors can also be Elvis impersonators, belly dancers or, indeed, flamenco enthusiasts. But on (somewhat morbidly) perusing the Times’ obituaries section last week, Obiter was surprised to read of a solicitor who ...
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Chancery Lane highlights the importance of legal professional privilege
The Court of Appeal’s decision to give the Law Society permission to intervene in Prudential PLC and Prudential (Gibraltar) Limited v Special Commissioner of Income Tax and Philip Pandolfo (HM Inspector of Taxes) is a crucial step in our efforts to defend the principles of legal professional privilege (LPP). LPP ...
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Cup of cheer
Four weeks to go and the World Cup piggybacking has kicked off, with Leeds firm Godloves scoring the opening goal. The ‘football mad’ firm is offering free wills advice to clients until 9 June – if England win the World Cup they won’t be billed. Sceptical readers might think it ...
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Chelsea and Yorkshire to review conveyancing panels
Chelsea and Yorkshire building societies are to conduct a review of their conveyancing panels following the merger of the two lenders last month, the Gazette has learned. The merger, which created the second largest building society in the country, was completed on 1 April. ...
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Mexican civil rights lawyer pleads for international support network
A Mexican civil rights lawyer who has received death threats in her own country visited the UK last week to persuade law firms and the Law Society to form an international support network for lawyers. Alba Cruz (pictured), from Oaxaca state, is representing 104 political dissidents, ...
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Technical problems continue to dog RTA claims portal
Technical problems are continuing to hamper the new road traffic accident (RTA) information exchange, set up to handle hundreds of thousands of low-value RTA claims. Solicitors told the Gazette this week that some have still not received access codes for the new RTA claims portal despite ...
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What will having Ken Clarke as justice secretary mean for solicitors?
So Kenneth Clarke is the new justice secretary. Not many people saw that one coming. Firstly, because everyone fully expected it to be Dominic Grieve, who had been shadow justice secretary, and secondly, because Clarke himself was presumed to be in line for the business role.
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Training and development must support the provision of high-quality service to clients
Throughout my legal career I have taken a keen interest in legal education and training. I was chairman of the governors of the College of Law until recently, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority has a pivotal position in the development of legal education and training.
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Nineteen new solicitor MPs enter House of Commons
Last week’s general election saw 19 solicitors newly elected as MPs – 14 for the Conservative Party and five for Labour. The new solicitor MPs came from all sections of the profession, including high street firms, large commercial practices, in-house and the public sector.
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Criminal law firm start-ups confound cull predictions
Government proposals to reduce the number of criminal law firms have not deterred new firms from setting up, according to specialist legal aid consultants. Simon Pottinger, founder of JRS Consultants, predicted that the number of firms with a criminal legal aid contract is likely to have ...
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Local government: council of war
‘Phoney War’ was the term used to describe the early months of World War II. Between the formal start of hostilities in September 1939 and Spring 1940, things seemed relatively quiet – at least in Western Europe. After that, of course, the dogs of war were let slip, furious and ...
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Insurance danger
It was reported in your news article on 12 April about Quinn Insurance that, of £5m of premiums due to the assigned risks pool underwriters, only £2m had been paid to date.
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News
Energy stocks, Poundland sells and housing developments
Power play: Magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised Indian energy company Essar Energy on its London Stock Exchange listing, which valued the company at around £5.5bn, potentially catapulting it into the FTSE-100 index. ...
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Mediations double in two years
The number of mediations has doubled in the last two years, and most mediators expect workloads to increase, according to research seen exclusively by the Gazette. The fourth biennial survey of civil and commercial mediators, carried out by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), showed ...
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Can the hundreds unable to vote at the general election sue?
People who were denied the right to vote at the general election can sue the Electoral Commission, according to Geoffrey Robertson QC. Interviewed last Friday, Robertson suggested that disenfranchised voters would receive compensation of at least £750. That just happens to be the figure that ...
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Employment
Age discrimination – Degrees – Indirect discrimination – Proportionality Homer v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Mummery, Maurice Kay, Richards): 27 ...