Headlines – Page 1399
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Munby calls for more openness in family courts
Legislation intended to open up the family courts is a ‘lost opportunity’ that will fail to bring about the openness needed to improve confidence in family proceedings, a leading judge has said. Giving the 2010 Hershman-Levy memorial lecture last week, Lord Justice Munby called for ‘radical ...
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Linklaters reports fall in turnover
Linklaters, the biggest law firm in the UK by revenues, has reported falls in turnover and average profits per equity partner (PEP) as it became the second of the magic circle to unveil full-year financial results. Turnover at the firm fell by 8.8% to £1.18bn in ...
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Exclusive: surge in merger activity as firms seek strength in numbers
Merger activity at small and medium-sized firms climbed by a third in the first half of 2010, according to new research published by the Law Consultancy Network in association with the Gazette. Three-quarters of firms surveyed said they had actively considered the option.
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What about the European courts?
Courts have problems, like everyone else. In the UK, there will be much heat over the coming months over the closure programme announced by the government.
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Family lawyers warn against dangers of cost cutting
Family solicitors have welcomed the government’s aim of encouraging alternatives to court in its review of the family justice system, but warned the focus must not only be cost cutting. The Ministry of Justice launched a ‘comprehensive review’ of the family justice system last week, ...
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Human rights
Terrorism – Control orders – Right to liberty and security Secretary of State for the Home Department (respondent) v AP (appellant): SC (Lord Phillips, Lord Saville, Lord Rodger, Lord Walker, Lord Brown, Lord Clarke, Sir John Dyson): 16 June ...
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Criminal law: new offences, amendments and provisions
Significant parts of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 took effect during the spring of this year. On 1 February section 59 was brought into force amending the Suicide Act 1961. For the old offence under section 2, there is now substituted a provision that ‘a person (D) commits an ...
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New ombudsman service Is ‘good value for money’
The new legal ombudsman service set up to investigate and resolve complaints made by users of legal services will open on 6 October this year. Established by the Office for Legal Complaints and based in Birmingham, the service will replace the Law Society-run Legal Complaints Service ...
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Big screen actress sends law reeling
Obiter sat in rapt silence while a young Roma man, for reasons unexplained, wrestled with a German shepherd dog before throwing himself off a cliff into the roiling waters below. Obiter was at the Strasbourg launch of the exquisitely named Fanny Ardant’s six-minute ...
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Birmingham's legal sector unites to battle effects of recession
They may not have much else in common with the Liberal Democrats, but Simmons & Simmons and Birmingham-based firm Shakespeare Putsman know the value of power sharing. They are both looking to a coalition – if that’s the right word – with Mayer Brown and Needham & James respectively. Consolidation ...
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Lawyer strikes a chord
Playing at the blues end of the musical spectrum this week we had Roger Bolt, senior partner at London firm Bolt Burdon Kemp, strumming his six-string on Saturday at Jazz after Dark in London’s Soho with eight-piece ensemble The Big Girls Blues Band. Elsewhere, we had the Gazette’s own City ...
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Rainmaker turns haymaker
Magic circle lawyer turned boxer Laura Saperstein (right) has been offered a European title fight. The British Boxing Board of Control made the offer earlier this week, the day after Saperstein won a points victory over Bulgarian bruiser Borislava Goranova at York Hall, Bethnal Green.
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When nations saw red
The traumas of the current sporting season are a far (battle) cry from the football war fought between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969, says Russell Evans, a partner at Southampton firm Eric Robinson. An immigration dispute between the two South American nations, coupled with ...
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Halliwells fallout: will banks be wary of lending to partnerships?
Recessions always have a long tail for professional services businesses. And as competitors pick over the carcass of Halliwells, the downturn’s biggest casualty yet in the legal sector, there is great anxiety among industry observers. Is this the thin end of what may turn out to be a very thick ...
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The Law Society is meeting the needs of members in difficult times
In my very first Podium last August, I wrote of the challenges facing the profession in what I anticipated would be one of the busiest years in the Law Society’s history. In my final article as president, I can state with confidence that the Society has met and dealt with ...
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Barristers and solicitors must work collaboratively
by Nicholas Green QCchairman of the Bar Council Budgetary cuts of seismic proportions; economic slump; legal aid revolutions; Jackson on costs; alternative business structures; quality assurance for advocates... it never ends. Myriad pressures are forcing the legal profession to look deeply into itself.
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Inexperienced firms seek help for mental health work
Legal aid cuts have forced firms with no mental health experience to bid for mental health contracts – and they are now urgently seeking to poach staff to enable them to do the work, recruiters have told the Gazette. Toby Williamson, director at national recruiters G2 ...
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Insolvency practitioners overpaid £15m a year
Insolvency practitioners are overpaid £15m a year because unsecured creditors are unable to rein in their fees, the Office of Fair Trading reported last week. In its study on the market for corporate insolvency, the OFT recommended that the government create an independent complaints-handling body to ...