Headlines – Page 1383
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Barristers offer ‘lifeline’ to criminal solicitors
Barristers’ chambers could provide a ‘lifeline’ to small criminal law firms, Bar Council chairman Nick Green QC has told the Gazette. ...
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LSC extends family contracts
The Legal Services Commission has agreed to extend the family legal aid contracts for a month, as the Law Society won an application for an expedited hearing of its judicial review at a hearing last week. At a directions hearing at the High Court on Friday, ...
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LSC extends family contracts
The Legal Services Commission has agreed to extend the family legal aid contracts for a month, as the Law Society won an application for an expedited hearing of its judicial review last week. At a directions hearing at the High Court on Friday, the court granted ...
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The SRA must amend the Code of Conduct or law firms will close
This autumn the media will be replete with stories about the number of small firms of solicitors who have ceased to practise. A recurrent theme will be the lack of competition between those firms who remain, and an absence of choice for the consumer. There are three reasons for my ...
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SRA steps up ARP enforcement action
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has visited 88 firms in the assigned risks pool (ARP) since July, as part of its tougher enforcement strategy to clamp down on ‘financially unstable’ firms in the pool. The regulator announced a new enforcement regime in July designed to address the ...
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Rules on ABS discussions unlikely to be relaxed
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is unlikely to relax its rules on allowing firms to enter into deals with other businesses in advance of the licensing of alternative business structures, a paper prepared by the regulator has indicated. The paper, which will be discussed by the SRA ...
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Should corporations be bound by human rights treaties?
Human rights treaties bind states, not big business. And yet some multinational corporations are virtually states in themselves.
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No common garden
Green-fingered solicitors at Shropshire firm Lanyon Bowdler are celebrating this month after winning the Mike Hough memorial trophy for the best outdoor garden, as well as a gold medal from the Shropshire Horticultural Society. Clients and staff all got stuck in to create the garden, from a plan produced by ...
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Insolvency
Football – CVAs – Creditors’ meetings – Unfair prejudice Portsmouth City Football Club Ltd (in administration) sub nom Revenue & Customs v (1) Portsmouth City Football Club Ltd (in administration) (2) Andrew Andronikou (3) Peter Kubik (4) Michael Kiely ...
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You be the judge
Obiter has always suspected that it must be good fun to be a judge, so an educational game currently featured on the Ministry of Justice website, which invites users to ‘be a judge for a day’, was too much to resist.
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High flyers
Some 70 years after Winston Churchill paid tribute to ‘the few’, an intellectual property lawyer was among those who took to the skies to commemorate the Battle of Britain this month. Alongside Bruce Dickinson (pictured, second right), frontman of legendary heavy metal outfit Iron Maiden, Ilya Kazi (right), partner at ...
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Employment
Discrimination – Contract terms – Equal pay – Women S Brownbill & Ors v St Helens & Knowsley Hospital NHS Trust: EAT (Mrs Justice Cox): 6 August 2010 The appellant ...
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Earning a crust
In these difficult times, it is good to know that the entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well, and indeed that every apparent difficulty is, in fact, an opportunity. As this column has documented, criminal defence solicitors have bemoaned the Court Service’s current policy of banning them from bringing dictation ...
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Succession
Estates – Mutual wills – Validity Angela Marilyn Charles (2) Derek Goddard (3) Anne Mabel Thompson v Jill Deborah Fraser: ChD (Jonathan Gaunt QC): 11 August 2010 The claimants (C) ...
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Changes to the law of homicide
In relation to acts or omissions on or after 4 October 2010, critical changes to the law of homicide are made by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The issues are dealt with in part 2 chapter 1. The first set of changes deals with diminished ...
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Consumer challenges to bank charges and loan agreements
I have this recurring image of an enormous office populated by eye-shaded clerks sitting at narrow desks, poring through every word, sentence and paragraph of current consumer legislation, looking for some infinitesimal sign of weakness, some feeble link in the chain of rules and regulations.
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New legal ombudsman Adam Sampson gives his first interview
Adam Sampson is the first to acknowledge that his new job as legal ombudsman is potentially a poisoned chalice. One of the main catalysts of the Legal Services Act (LSA), which brought his organisation into being, was (as he puts it) ‘the woeful record on complaints-handling [of] the Legal Complaints ...
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Why we had to issue formal proceedings over the family legal tender
The days of a ‘quiet August’ are a thing of the past. The change of government has ensured that Whitehall has remained a hive of activity over the summer – and here at the Law Society we have been far busier than anticipated. As you will ...
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Lenders must not take control of the conveyancing market
by James Naish, qualified chartered surveyor and solicitor at Naish Estate Agents & Solicitors in York Panel reshuffles present a real threat to small conveyancing firms. We might consider the longer-term implications by reviewing what has happened in residential surveying.
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Confusion over PII quote
In my experience, sole practitioners who have not yet taken steps to renew their professional indemnity insurance could be somewhat misled by your lead news item of 19 August, ‘Insurance boost for sole practitioners’