All Law Gazette articles in Archive – Page 1521
-
News
Inquiring minds
Throughout 2011, the phone hacking scandal has rocked the UK’s public landscape, drawing comparisons with Watergate in terms of its effect on our national psyche and its long-term significance. The saga has kicked off again this Autumn with the Leveson Inquiry, but listening to testimony of News Corporation staff throughout ...
-
News
Charities reveal qualms about seeking legal advice
Charities understand little about the law but many are put off talking to a solicitor because of worries about cost, according to a major new study. The Legal Services Consumer Panel asked more than 800 small charities about their legal needs and experiences. Responses showed ...
-
News
Barristers plan escrow scheme for holding client money
The bar is looking into a scheme to allow barristers to hold client money through proxies, the incoming head of the bar said in his inaugural speech last night.
-
News
I didn’t forget defence solicitors, says lord chief justice
The lord chief justice has thanked defence solicitors for the ‘huge contribution’ made in the summer riot court cases, stressing that they had been included in his earlier praise of the rest of the legal profession. At his annual press conference at the Royal Courts of ...
-
News
Retreating partners
As many of us know from experience, partners in solicitors’ practices often cannot agree on even writing the most basic strategic plan; yet at this time of extreme change it is more important than ever that law firms have a clear vision as to what the future holds for them. ...
-
News
Top 100 growing fast, Deloitte survey shows
The legal sector has been given a welcome boost after new figures showed a sharp rise in income among leading firms. The top 100 have reported an average revenue increase of nearly 10% for the second quarter ended 31 October. A survey by Deloitte showed that ...
-
News
Solicitors to work ‘unpaid’ until committals abolished in April 2012
Committals in either way criminal cases will be abolished from April 2012, the justice secretary announced today. Kenneth Clarke said the change will be effected by bringing into force schedule 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 on a phased basis. The regions where it will ...
-
News
ICAEW set to regulate ABSs
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has confirmed it is applying to become a licensing authority for alternative business structures.
-
News
US backs non-lawyer investment, but rejects ABSs
The US’s leading legal governance body has taken a step towards allowing non-lawyers to hold a financial stake in law firms, but is rejecting English-style alternative business structures.
-
News
The creation of ABSs offers the chance for others to shape the future of the in-house sector
The views of corporate counsel command a high degree of moral authority and respect in the world of commercial legal services. It was not always so, but it is now rare for private practice partners to deride in-house peers as professionals who went in-house because they ‘couldn’t cut it’ in ...
-
News
ADR should not be used as a tool to force a defendant to accept unreasonable settlement terms
The apparent similarity (in my own mind, at least) between the Courts and Tribunals Service and a lunatic asylum never ceases to amaze me. The latest example is in relation to ‘small-claims mediation’. My understanding of the new (and in my view, necessary) rules was that ...
-
News
Society defends in-house lawyers against EU ruling
The Law Society is to defend the status of in-house lawyers against a controversial Luxembourg ruling barring them from appearing as advocates before the European Union’s top court. The Society is to lodge an application to intervene in an appeal against a 2010 ruling by the ...
-
News
Pre-nuptial agreements post-Radmacher
Mr Justice Moor’s decision in Z v Z [2011] EWHC 2878 (Fam) is believed to be the first contested case in the High Court in which the principles of Radmacher have been considered. As Moor J stated in his judgment, Radmacher ‘changed the position fundamentally’ of pre-nuptial agreements and ...
-
News
All legal services should be regulated
The debate about which legal services should be regulated and which should not is not new. Over the years, reserved activities have been added in an ad hoc fashion and the result has been: confusion for consumers; firms being set up to undertake activities that are entirely unregulated with no ...
-
News
Bach hits the mark
Insomnia sometimes has its advantages. Many years ago as a newly qualified, hungry, ambitious lawyer, my sleep pattern was destroyed by nightly visits to police stations to assist clients in custody.
-
News
More solicitors make the bench
Solicitors outperformed barristers in two selection exercises for the judiciary completed earlier this year, the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) has revealed. Eleven solicitors and eight barristers were selected as district judges (magistrates’ court) and 14 solicitors and 11 barristers as lawyer chairmen of the Residential ...
-
News
Monkey business
Obiter is indebted to Loch Associates, a Tunbridge Wells and London niche employment practice, for these insights into the more eccentric aspects of employing people. Some tales from the firm’s latest newsletter: A hotel cleaner wanted a day off work, but rather than simply asking his ...
-
News
Personal injury interest calculation
The standard rate of interest on general damages for pain and suffering and loss of amenities in personal injury cases was fixed at 2% a year by the House of Lords in Birkett v Hayes [1982] 1 WLR 816; [1982] 2 All ER 70. This was confirmed as appropriate by ...
-
News
Conveyancing solicitors must meet the challenge of competition head on
by Peter Rodd, senior conveyancing partner at Boys & Maughan in Margate The new Conveyancing Protocol is eight months old. The growing number of firms accredited under the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) are obliged to follow it, and many others are beginning to do so.
-
News
How safe is it to store confidential client data in the cloud?
As a freelance journalist, I like the idea of storing all my documents ‘in the cloud’ rather than on whichever of my computers I happen to be using at the time. If I need to check an item urgently, I can download it wherever I happen to be - borrowing ...