Headlines – Page 1175
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News International under pressure to waive advice privilege
Media giant News International last week came under pressure at the Leveson Inquiry into press standards to waive privilege over advice from its solicitors.
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Seldon: ‘I’d fight age bias claim again’
The former equity partner whose age discrimination claim was dismissed by the Supreme Court last week after six years of litigation would ‘do it all again’, he told the Gazette. Leslie Seldon (pictured) said there was ‘no bad blood’ between him and Clarkson Wright & Jakes ...
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Clarke asks top judges to probe disclosure sanctions
Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke has asked two senior judges to review sanctions for disclosure failures in criminal trials, to ‘mitigate the resource burden’ imposed by disclosure.
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On the beat with PACE
I write in response to the article ‘Suspects denied right to consult solicitor’. As I have been representing the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) on Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) strategy I wanted to clarify the national policing position on this matter.
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Voicing concern
Journalists Catherine Baksi and John Hyde are to be congratulated for their perseverance in reporting on what is correctly described in your editorial as the ‘farce’ resulting from the engagement of Applied Language Solutions (aka Capita) for the justice system’s interpreting and translating services.
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For the record
The article ‘Reaching a verdict’ made reference to the tragic case of Sally Clark. It rightly praised the work of a family member in uncovering the medical records that proved critical in the appeal. However, I should point out that the records were obtained for ...
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Bad representation
I refer to the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s advice on dealing with a litigant in person. It is particularly helpful to those who have not been there before. A litigant in person is in a better place than a litigant represented by an incompetent solicitor. Some years ago I made a ...
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Generation gap
I am a sole practitioner and higher rights advocate on crime and motoring. I read with interest the various letters and articles with regard to virtual files, laptops in court and the ‘real progress’ that is being made. For example, signing up for secure email.
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JAC commissioner: 'let solicitors become judges'
The newly-appointed solicitor commissioner to the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) has expressed scepticism about targets and quotas for diversity as well as the ‘tipping point’ method of favouring under-represented groups.
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'Safe harbour’ compliance advice for whole profession
The Law Society has announced it will offer ‘safe harbour’ compliance advice to the whole profession. The move follows Chancery Lane’s launch last month of the Compliance Reference Group (CRG) pilot for enquiries on regulation from top-100 firms. The service will now ...
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Post-legislative scrutiny of the 2000 FoI act
Last year the justice select committee, chaired by Sir Alan Beith, launched a call for written evidence for its post-legislative scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoI). The committee invited written evidence on the following issues (although those responding were free to discuss other matters): ...
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Franchises elicit every human response from lawyers, but rarely good-humoured scepticism
The emergence of law firm franchises - the subject of a feature by Neil Hodge this week - is an alien and unwelcome development for many solicitors. Negative responses range from fear to disdain. Franchises are not to everyone’s taste, but as a response to a changing legal market they ...
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Law firm trainee opportunities 'boosted by salary cut'
Removing the trainee minimum salary will increase training opportunities but at a cost of lower wages, a survey has found.
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Law centres will continue to fight for their clients and communities
by Julie Bishop, director of the Law Centres Federation As deliberation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act was nearing conclusion, I thought I saw in the eyes of several work acquaintances the kind of commiserating gaze reserved for terminally ill patients.
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Open letter: trainee solicitors and the minimum salary
We are a few of the thousands of students who have passed the LPC exam and are desperately waiting for training contracts. We and many of our other friends have been applying for training contracts for over two years since passing the LPC but without success. Some of us have ...
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‘Burdensome’ patent court should come to UK, say MPs
A group of MPs has slammed the European Union’s draft agreement on the creation of a centralised court to allow businesses to obtain a low-cost single patent covering 25 European countries. They said that negotiations have been rushed through, but insist that any such court must ...
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Name game
Obiter has always been impressed seeing professional lobbyist friends in action around a major parliamentary vote, especially when those friends are on the side of the angels. The lobbyists scour parliamentarians’ records and past passions, target MPs with relevant constituency interests, press case studies on those they identify as vulnerable ...
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Keep dreaming
Parallels between Lord Falconer and Kevin Costner (pictured) are scarce, Obiter has to admit. But the former lord chancellor evoked the spirit of the body-guarding Prince of Thieves last week at the grandly-titled SRA Regulation Symposium. In keeping with the theme of the day, Tony Blair’s former flatmate was asked ...
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'Interesting' insight
It’s getting on for two years since the government launched its crackdown on local authority newspapers. Communities secretary Eric Pickles declared war on what he famously described as ‘town hall Pravdas’ wasting taxpayers’ money and time.Lately, however, ministers have stopped beating that drum - hardly surprising when Whitehall departments continue ...
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Competition
European Union - Rules on competition - European Commission finding defendant companies entering into cartel regarding provision of heavy electrical equipment used in power grids National Grid Electricity Transmission Plc v ABB Ltd and other companies: ChD (Mr ...