Headlines – Page 1133
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BSB chastised over ‘bad’ misconduct findings
The first barrister to set up a legal disciplinary practice has overturned her convictions for breaching Bar Standards Board codes on conducting litigation in a public access case. Portia O’Connor (pictured) set up Pegasus Legal Research in 2010. In May 2011 she was convicted by ...
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Calm in a crisis: lawyers and the internet age
There are events in the life-cycle of any business that have the potential to snowball into a crisis of unforeseen proportions. It could be a bad set of financial results or a scuppered merger. Or perhaps employee lay-offs, a high-profile desertion to a rival or allegations of misconduct by senior ...
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Legislative presumption of shared parenting ‘flawed’
Government plans to introduce a legislative presumption of shared parenting could undermine child welfare and increase the volume of litigation, according to the Law Society. Responding to a Ministry of Justice consultation which closed this week, the Society said the government’s proposal to promote co-operative parenting ...
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Law firms 'cut out' of LPO market
The annual global market in outsourcing legal processes has passed the psychologically important billion-dollar (£630m) mark, a market survey claims this week. The 2012 Global LPO Market Study, published by New York-based consultancy The LPO Program, says legal process outsourcing (LPO) employs some 9,000 people. ...
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Grey area
Talk about one-track minds. Of the 178 entries to our competition to name next summer’s legal bestseller, no fewer than 41 were variations on Fifty Shades of Grey. ‘Sorry, you will get that a lot,’ Sarah Taylor observed correctly on her submission Fifty Shades of Gray’s Inn. Bob Sage suggested ...
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Clarke’s trademark insouciance made him ideal for the job of dismantling legal aid
Kenneth Clarke’s singular deportment and affable manner have served to obscure the skeletons in a voluminous ministerial cupboard. Though widely considered a success as John Major’s chancellor, two decades ago he was an architect of the ruinous Private Finance Initiative. Clarke also began the process ...
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Discriminatory acts have a moral significance
by Dr Ronan McCrea, a barrister and lecturer in the Faculty of Laws at University College London Joshua Rozenberg’s piece on the issue of conscience exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation argues that no legitimate aim has been identified for requiring individuals to provide a service in violation ...
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Achieve by sharing problems with other jurisdictions
As is usual for new Law Society presidents at this time of year, I was thrown into the mix of 8,000 lawyers at the American Bar Association’s annual conference, the largest global gathering of lawyers after the International Bar Association’s annual conference. I arrived on American soil with a carefully ...
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Automatic fines ‘top of shopping list’ for SRA
The Solicitors Regulation Authority will call on the government for permission to impose on-the-spot fines for firms that fail to comply with regulatory deadlines. Hundreds of firms are thought to have failed to submit nominations for compliance officers more than a month after a deadline ...
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International law
Foreign sovereign state - Immunity from suit - Applicant company obtaining foreign judgment against one of Iraq’s government ministries Bank and others: SC (Justices of the Supreme Court, Lords Phillips (president), Clarke, Sumption, Reed, Lady Hale): 17 August 2012 ...
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Men in tights
As a history scholar, our new lord chancellor, Christopher Grayling MP, is no doubt looking forward to trying out his costume of wig, robes and tights. However, thanks to the flexibilities of the English constitution, the office of lord chancellor, established in 1066, has been more susceptible to change than ...
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Call for ‘sanity’ on whiplash as claim numbers fall
Lawyers have called for a rethink on whiplash injury compensation after the government’s own figures showed that the number of claims fell by almost 24,000 last year. Records uncovered by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) showed 547,405 claims for whiplash in 2011/12, compared with ...
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Consumers may sue traders before national courts
European Union (EU) consumers may bring proceedings before the courts in their own member state against traders in other member states even if they had visited the trader to conclude the contract, the EU’s top court has ruled. The ruling takes into account a 2002 amendment ...
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Could wishes of legal aid campaigners be Granted?
She is a mixed-race woman who grew up on a council estate and was educated away from Oxbridge. Cynics will suggest it was inevitable that Maidstone MP Helen Grant would be parachuted into a ministerial role, despite entering parliament only in 2010. But is there more ...
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Changing law firms' culture
Recently, the legal press has been full of reports of firms applying for alternative business structure (ABS) status. Notably, in the last couple of weeks we have learnt that Irwin Mitchell’s application has been granted and that insurance firm Parabis is set for a £50m cash injection after being granted ...
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Assumption of responsibility for a subsidiary's responsibilities
In the landmark decision of Chandler v Cape plc [2012] EWCA Civ 525, the Court of Appeal upheld a High Court decision that a parent company owed a direct duty of care towards an employee of one of its subsidiaries to ensure a safe system of work. This case has ...
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My hope for Chris Grayling
by Eduardo Reyes, Gazette features editor Maybe the new justice secretary is about to have an expensive re-education. I admit that on his record he is not an obvious ‘rule of law’ groupie.
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Find your own referral-fee workarounds, SRA tells firms
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned that it will not provide law firms with ‘safe harbour’ guidance to deal with the forthcoming referral fee ban. In a discussion paper released yesterday, the regulator says solicitors and firms should be able to work out from the legislation ...
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Fresh faces at justice ministry after reshuffle
A criminal law barrister and former Labour-supporting law firm founder are among the new faces at the Ministry of Justice after a sweeping reshuffle of ministerial posts. After replacing Kenneth Clarke with Christopher Grayling as justice secretary, Downing Street confirmed this morning that ministers Crispin Blunt, ...
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My hope for Chris Grayling
Maybe the new justice secretary is about to have an expensive re-education. I admit that on his record he is not an obvious ‘rule of law’ groupie. On past form, he thinks it’s fine to shoot robbers in the back when they are running away. He was famously a bit ...