All Law Gazette articles in Archive – Page 1392
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News
The implications of a court ruling on vague IT contract terms
In my last column I described the syndrome of IT contract blindness – the ailment that causes parties to an IT contract not to notice that the words in the agreement bear little resemblance to what they are actually planning on doing. Since writing, it has fallen to the Court ...
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News
Deputy difficulty
I was very interested to read the letter Capacity issue by Lindsay Taylor. I have been appointed as deputy for a family friend who has all the symptoms of dementia but is living in his own house with a care package to assist him. I duly registered the deputyship order ...
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News
Shaggy dog stories
Given the British love of animals, the urbane barrister Patrick Back believed that if he could introduce a dog into his closing speech, he had one foot in the acquittal door, writes James Morton. His favourite was when the earl comes home and finds his child and the bed covered ...
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News
Follow that dream
Obiter has been mightily amused by the stunning ‘legal musical’ plotlines submitted in our competition to win two tickets to the West End show, Legally Blonde: The Musical. Plots included a secret love child conceived during a post-deal celebration; gangs of lawyers engaging ...
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Local government
Environment – Human rights – Public procurement Veolia ES Nottinghamshire Ltd (appellant) v Nottinghamshire County Council (respondent) and (1) Shlomo Dowen (2) Audit Commission for Local Authorities and the National Health Service For England (interested parties): CA (Civ Div) ...
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News
Government rethinks TUPE stance
The coalition government has scrapped plans to reform controversial employment regulations in an apparent U-turn by the Conservatives, it has emerged. Mark Hammerton, employment partner at national firm Eversheds, said Lord Hunt, now energy minister, had suggested before the election that a Conservative government would seek ...
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News
Making the grade
Restrictions on the legal practice course should be based not on whether a person has obtained a training contract, but on whether or not they are likely to do so. At university, I was among high achievers who obtained training contracts before commencing the LPC. Many ...
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News
Unions play a key role in improving safety in the workplace
Against a background of Lord Young’s review and the ongoing debate about Jackson, unions continue to campaign for fairness and decent health and safety standards at work. These are basic social needs necessary for stable industrial relations, growth and prosperity in any workplace. Employees have ...
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Neuberger: mediation is no substitute for justice
Mediation ‘cannot be a substitute for justice’, the master of the rolls warned this week, in a view that appears sharply at odds with government proposals to replace many legal aid-funded cases with alternative dispute resolution. Unveiling the government’s legal aid reforms this week, justice secretary ...
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Skilled worker visa quota massively oversubscribed
So many visa applications have been submitted by highly skilled workers from outside the EU this month that November’s quota of 600 applications was reached three weeks before the end of the month, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has revealed. In July, the government introduced a ...
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Quality street
It was with great fanfare that national law firm ‘superbrand’ Quality Solicitors launched its first ‘legal store’ in a south London shopping centre last week. Intrigued, Obiter decided to make a little trip down to Lewisham, incognito of course, to see where the legal profession is headed, from beneath a ...
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News
Society launches campaign to fight legal aid cuts
The Law Society has called on law firms to lobby MPs over the impact of the government’s proposed legal aid overhaul, in the first stage in its campaign to fight the cuts. Chancery Lane has warned that the plans outlined in last week’s consultation to reduce ...
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News
‘Compensation culture’ peer quits over gaffe
Lord Young of Graffham will not now assist the government with the implementation of his report on the ‘compensation culture’ after quitting his advisory role this afternoon, Downing Street has confirmed to the Gazette. The government backed the Tory peer’s report, Common Sense, Common Safety, and ...
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News
Fixed fees shouldn’t kill time recording
If you are making strategic decisions do you have sufficient financial information to make those decisions? It seems that calculating the expense of time may have gone out of fashion. Some may never have calculated it. But how do you know if a transaction is profitable? And how, if you ...
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A timely guide to EU actions on the financial crisis
I have chosen the ideal time to write about the new regime being established by the EU to ensure that there is not another financial crisis – now when the structure of the eurozone is tottering as a result of the crisis, and the future of the euro and of ...
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Feature
BOOK REVIEW APIL Guide to Tripping and Slipping Cases
Author: Charles Foster and Ben Bradley Every caseload of a general personal injury lawyer will have a number of tripping and slipping cases. In a large proportion of these cases the defendant will be obvious, an early admission of ...
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News
Justice minister calls for greater steer towards mediation
Individuals should play a greater role in solving their problems rather than turning to the courts, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly said last week as he set out the government’s plan to support mediation in the wake of its proposals to slash legal aid. Speaking at CEDR’s ...
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News
Scrap training contract, says thinktank
A legal thinktank has today called for the abolition of the training contract as part of proposed radical changes to legal education and training. A 53-page discussion paper from the College of Law’s Legal Services Institute (LSI) urges scrapping training contracts and making the Legal Practice ...
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News
Forensic expert witnesses should be accredited, warns judge
A lack of accreditation of expert witnesses means that anyone with a scientific background and sufficient ‘brass neck’ could set themselves up as a forensic science expert and mislead the court, a Court of Appeal judge has warned. Lord Justice Leveson told the Forensic Science Society ...