Headlines – Page 1060
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News
Do single joint experts work?
The main rationale for using a single joint expert (SJE) is to reduce the costs and delays associated with using expert witnesses on behalf of each of the parties in litigation. This has been in place for a number of years, but experience of SJE appointments confirms that new issues ...
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Our only certainty is uncertainty
Sado-masochism, that's the only possible answer. How else do you explain why so many solicitors line up for conferences about the future of the legal profession, like lobsters clambering to the front of the tank for a better view of the cooking instructions? I speak as ...
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Wig or the wok?
Congratulations to employment solicitor Larkin Cen, who made it through to last night’s final of MasterChef, despite a kitchen calamity in a previous episode in which his souffle crashed to the floor. Cen has been a solicitor for three years at Morgan Cole in Bristol. ...
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UKIP’s law and justice policy
What is most notable about UKIP’s 2013 local ‘manifesto’ is not its brevity, but its banality. We know about the dog-whistle scapegoating of ‘immigrants’ and ‘travellers’. What else is there? UKIP believes council tax should go down, tax generally should be ‘as low as possible’ (zero, ...
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Contempt jailings should never be secret, leading judges warn
No one found guilty of contempt should be jailed in secret, two of the country’s most senior judges have declared in a strong stand for open justice. The lord chief justice Lord Judge (pictured) and Sir James Munby, who is both head of the High Court’s ...
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Extradition
Appeal – Respondent judicial authority requesting appellant's extradition to serve remainder of sentence following various offences Neuman v Circuit Court of Katowice, Poland: Queen's Bench Division, Administrative Court: 15 February 2013 ...
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Hague’s concern sits ill with Tory agenda
You might have thought that an organisation called the Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice would not have much hope of a grant from a Tory cabinet minister. Too much resonance of Harriet Harman. Too much potential irony in how cuts, like those to legal aid, have been directed not against ...
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Immigration
Rules – Amendment being made – Immigration Rules imposing pre-entry English language test for foreign spouses and partners of British citizens or persons settled in UK R (on the application of Bibi and another v Secretary of State for ...
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‘Clients’ are owed a fiduciary duty of care
It may be a matter of semantics, but to a solicitor there is a distinction of substance between the concepts of ‘customer’ and ‘client’. All clients are by definition also ‘customers’ and deserve a level of service that recognises commercial realities, including increasing competition from the nationals who are better ...
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‘Final and binding’ awards in family law
Dennis Sheridan’s article on family law arbitration sets out the key benefits of the new Institute of Family Law Arbitrators (IFLA) scheme, but risks being dangerously misleading in one respect, namely that ‘awards’ made under the scheme are ‘final and binding’. More worryingly, he makes this claim in relating what ...
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PII prescription from Society?
The 8 April Gazette contains the president’s invitation to submit suggestions as to how the Law Society could help solicitors. Here is mine.
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Figure it out
A dip in interpreter provision. And on whose figures? Even Capita is now hard-pressed to attempt to present a positive picture. I have striven again and again in letters to the Ministry of Justice, from the secretary of state downwards, to secure a straight answer to a simple though basic ...
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City limits
Richard Edwards asks whether it is just him who thinks the government is protecting the interests of the City while destroying concepts such as fairness, access to justice and equality of arms. No Mr Edwards, it is not just you.
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Title lapse
About a week ago we received yet another email from the Solictors Regulation Authority, on this occasion regarding a number of important rule changes in connection with personal injury cases. The letter commenced ‘Dear sirs’. As far as we are aware there are a large number ...
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NewsRoundtable: Wales and devolution
'Jagged-edged' devolution boundaries have placed lawyers in Wales on shaky ground
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News
‘Overwhelming’ support for action as 400 barristers stay away from court
Crown court hearings across the north were disrupted today as over 400 barristers stayed away from court in the first incident of militant action against the government’s planned reforms to criminal legal aid. The all-day protest meeting followed a ballot of barristers on the northern circuit, ...
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SRA management ‘lacks diversity’
A critical report on the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s workforce diversity policy has finally seen the light – 18 months after its completion. The regulator circulated the review, carried out in October 2011, along with a response last week, following threats by the Law Society’s equality ...
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Stress rising among lawyers – LawCare
Three-quarters of lawyers say they are more stressed now than they were five years ago, according to a survey by legal charity LawCare. Responses from more than 1,000 solicitors, barristers and legal executives blamed overwork, poor management, lack of appreciation, and feeling isolated or unsupported. ...
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Society demands insurer title change
The Law Society is pressing regulators to drop the title of ‘qualifying insurers’ after the failure of a third professional indemnity insurer. The Society wants the Solicitors Regulation Authority to change the designation to ‘participating insurers’ to avoid perpetuating the misconception that insurers are vetted by ...
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Legal director at centre of High Court dispute
The dismissed former director of West Yorkshire Police legal services is at the centre of a dispute that led to the suspension of another force’s temporary chief constable on grounds that the High Court subsequently ruled were ‘perverse and irrational’. Afzal Hussain, dismissed from his legal ...