All Law Gazette articles in Archive – Page 1583
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Criminal evidence
Hearsay - Document - Whether conviction on count 1 unsafe R v Ibrahim: Court of Appeal, Criminal Division (Lord Justice Aikens, Mr Justice Field and Judge Nicholas Cooke QC): 27 April 2012 ...
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SRA defends trainee minimum salary cut
Scrapping the trainee minimum salary will increase, rather than hinder, diversity in the profession, a senior regulator has insisted. Samantha Barrass, executive director of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, was speaking after SRA board members voted to deregulate the minimum salary at their meeting last week. Following ...
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Decision to scrap the trainee minimum salary was ill-considered and nonsensical
by Hekim Hannan, chair of the Junior Lawyers Division Last week the SRA abolished the trainee minimum salary, currently £18,590 in Central London and £16,650 elsewhere.
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Insolvency exemption in latest no win, no fee U-turn
Insolvency cases will be exempt from no win, no fee reforms until April 2015, the government has revealed in its second climb-down in its struggle to overhaul the civil justice system. Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly said today that insolvency practitioners need longer to adjust to ...
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Young ones face the music
They braced themselves like naughty schoolchildren outside the headmaster’s office expecting a thrashing. The Junior Lawyers Division was always on a hiding to nothing by electing to attend last week’s public session of the Solicitors Regulation Authority board. ‘Do we get to actually speak in the ...
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Foot loose
HM Judiciary, represented here by the master of the rolls and lord chief justice, hit a distinctive sartorial note on Monday’s London Legal Walk. T-shirts and trainers were worn, but frequently over double-cuffed shirts and ties, and creased trousers. Exotic headgear was optional. Despite the mature ...
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A helping hand: sponsorship programmes
Corporations on both sides of the Atlantic are introducing formal sponsorship programmes to propel women and other under-represented groups into very senior roles. Law firms that want to boost diversity at the top of their organisations and improve their business performance should take note. In the US, notes Deborah Epstein ...
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Spousal maintenance - how much and for how long?
These two questions vex even the most experienced family law practitioners. Disputes over spousal maintenance often preclude an early settlement. Many practitioners have also commented that the approach to an award of spousal maintenance around the country is widely inconsistent, with regional variations being particularly noticeable.
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Upholding human rights
Bryan Nott’s Comment takes to task the call to UK firms to set up in Colombia and expresses clearly the dangerous situation of trade unionists in Colombia: ‘Three out of five trade unionists murdered worldwide are in Colombia’.
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Intellectual property
Patents Court - Jurisdiction Suh and another v Ryu and others: Patents County Court (Judge Birss QC): 3 May 2012 The Patents County Court held that regulation 3(2)(b) of the ...
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Intellectual property
Patent - Infringement - Order for destruction Merck Canada Inc and another v Sigma Pharmaceuticals plc: Patents County Court (Judge Birss QC): 3 May 2012 The Patents County Court granted ...
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Managing stress
We at LawCare were sorry to read the letter of 10 May from Jean Booth. Sadly her experience of stress leading to debilitating and ultimately career-ending depression is one we hear only too often on the LawCare helpline. We would reiterate Ms Booth’s advice - if you are juggling the ...
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Persistence pays off
Edward Foster suggests it is unfair that so few LPC students secure a training contract and that a three-year postgraduate professional apprenticeship may be the way forward. The abolition of the minimum trainee ‘wage’ agreed last week should also help.
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Sole ‘success’
Viv Williams’s recent comments really rubbed salt into a wound which was just beginning to heal. I set up my practice 25 years ago and operated as a sole practitioner for all of those years, highly successfully. I had a superb, loyal following which resulted ...
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Will-writing and property firms bring ABS total to seven
Two niche firms specialising in will-writing and property respectively have become the latest two organisations to be accepted as alternative business structures (ABSs). Parchment Group, based in Buckinghamshire, and three-partner firm Plainlaw, based in Oxfordshire, had their applications confirmed this week by the Solicitors Regulation Authority ...
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Keeping the Pirates at Bay (or away from it)
In 2003, a group of friends living in Sweden launched a website which quickly became one of the most notorious sites on the internet - a file-sharing website known as The Pirate Bay. The High Court has now instructed five internet service providers (ISPs) to take measures to block their ...
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Don’t rush into fee change, PI lawyers warn government
Personal injury lawyers have urged the government not to be rushed into radical changes to the low-value claims system. The government today closed its call for evidence and opinion on the future of the RTA Portal as it seeks to reduce the number of claims being ...