Comment and opinion – Page 212
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OpinionLawyers need to think tactically on costs
A few months in to the new costs budgeting regime, many litigators have already had to knuckle down and complete Precedent H
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OpinionMesothelioma and Monopoly
There's a moment in most games of Monopoly when you have to make the choice. Your opponent needs your Pall Mall to complete their set, and they'll offer you a red, a green and a station in return. The deal looks too good to be true - what the hell ...
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NewsMPs have hearts, too
The green shoots of recovery are at last peeping through the arid soil of austerity as one deserving group of public sector workers are promised an inflation-busting 9% pay rise just days before laying down tools for their six-week summer break. I refer, of course, to our members of parliament ...
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OpinionChannel 4 is wrong to screen The Murder Trial
The strangest moment I ever faced while reporting a murder trial was some years ago in Braintree. The victim had been killed outside a nightclub and the DJ was giving evidence about the last time he saw the accused: dancing enthusiastically to ‘Oops Upside your Head’ (this really does constitute ...
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OpinionChannel 4 was right to screen The Murder Trial
Last night’s two-hour TV documentary about the Scottish trial of fruit and veg seller Nat Fraser for the murder of his wife Arlene offered a fascinating insight in the reality and banality of the courtroom. Despite the horrific and extraordinary nature of the offence, the programme, even with its sometimes ...
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Opinion
Lewisham Hospital prompts tribunal of the people
It is increasingly obvious that citizens worldwide are becoming disenchanted and disengaged with established government. This has been manifest in various forms of political and economic meltdown. Underpinning all the movements is a desire for accountability and transparency. Where this is not forthcoming ordinary people are finding ways of exercising ...
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Opinion
London legal pre-eminence is not set in stone
Honeyed words from Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, in-house head of legal at the multi-billion-pound international Hinduja Group. ‘There is a global respect for English law and London lawyers are the most experienced in the world,’ he told delegates at the Law Society’s International Marketplace Conference last week. Yet the global market is ...
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NewsJudicial satire is deadly serious
Price-competitive tendering for judges. That is the subject of a spoof essay of application for the job of lord chief justice, penned by Court of Appeal judge Sir Alan Moses (‘aged 67½’), demonstrating the absurdity of the government’s planned legal aid reforms. The sitting judge read his work ‘What I ...
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NewsA song and dance over Europe
I preferred to be a wall-flower last week rather than join in the wild and shameless hokey cokey led by the government over the decision both to opt out and then opt back in to various EU criminal law measures. We will opt out of 135 and opt back in ...
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OpinionWhy the Magna Carta still has relevance today
What shall we be doing in the summer of 2015? A general election is scheduled for 7 May. If Theresa May gets her way, we shall be voting on whether to denounce a list of rights and liberties that will have been binding on our rulers for little more than ...
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OpinionTactics emerge in costs budgeting
Some interesting points emerged in relation to costs budgeting at IBC Legal’s Impact of Jackson conference last week. By now, many litigators will have had to knuckle down and complete Precedent H – the form through which they must provide the opposing party with an estimate of their costs in ...
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OpinionDefendant firms are turkeys protecting Christmas
This may surprise you, but not all my correspondence is adoring fanmail. Indeed, on some occasions people tell me rather forcefully that I’m wrong, and often in the kind of language that gives our email filter system nightmares. The majority of angry responses come from defendant firms who take issue ...
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OpinionCounting the cost of interventions
The cost of law firm failures is being felt across the solicitors’ profession. The Gazette reported recently that the unprecedented bill for the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) intervening in failing firms means that we will all have to pay an extra £23 each towards the compensation fund in the coming ...
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Opinion
Open justice? Open court listings would be a start
A century ago, in Scott v Scott (1913), the House of Lords affirmed the common law rule that courts must administer justice in public. Just last week, Lord Justice Kay cited the ruling when rejecting a request by a Saudi prince for litigation to be heard in private. He ruled: ...
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OpinionThe jury’s out on the European Public Prosecutor
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the case of United Kingdom vs the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
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Opinion
Leader: Restitution would favour those who deliver growth in our economy
As the government limbers up to sell its stake in some of our largest banks
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OpinionThe best of summer holiday reading
It’s the time of year when every respectable journal tells you what reading to pack for the beach, and so here goes. Crime The fiction list for lawyers has not been strong this year. A late contender is the publication in the last few days of the Financial Action Task ...
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OpinionVulnerable people are most at risk from PCT
The legal profession has been up in arms over the proposed introduction of price-competitive tendering. But no one should be more concerned than individuals living with learning difficulties and disabilities such as autism, because they are the ones most at risk as a result of the changes. Criminal defence specialists ...