Headlines – Page 1426
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Landlord and tenant
Animals – Housing – Human rights – Nuisance Dee Thomas-Ashley v Drum Housing Association Ltd: CA (Civ Div) (Sir Andrew Morritt (chancellor), Lord Justice Thomas, Sir Scott Baker): 17 March 2010 ...
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Employment
Disciplinary procedures – Doctors – Gross misconduct – Unfair dismissal Sameer Sarkar v West London Mental Health NHS Trust: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Mummery, Richards, Rimer): 19 March 2010 ...
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Negligence
Child sexual abuse – Clergy – Duty of care – Vicarious liability MAGA (by his litigation friend the Official Solicitor) v Trustees of the Birmingham Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church: CA (Civ Div) (Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Master ...
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Blundering on
Following last week’s ‘final’ episode of the popular dictation blunders series, soft-hearted old Obiter has caved in to pleas for just one more instalment. Here are a few more amusing leaps of logic made by legal secretaries. Mike Thomson, director at Arnold Thomson in Towcester, Northamptonshire, recalls: ‘Years ago when ...
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Turning a blind eye to EastEnders
Obiter is pleased to note that nobody spotted the frankly shocking error in last week’s issue. It was of course Archie, not Alfie, Mitchell who was murdered by that nasty Stacey Slater. Clearly members of the profession have far better things to do ...
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Memo to self: must do better
A recent review of the Crown Prosecution Service in London rated its standard of performance ‘poor’ in 12 of the 32 London boroughs. So grievous were the failings outlined in the report by HM CPS Inspectorate, that it concluded defendants in the capital were more likely to walk free because ...
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Hour of need
The Gazette reported last week that executive law firm members of environmental group the Legal Sector Alliance all pledged to participate in an ‘Earth hour’ event last weekend, switching off their lights for an hour from 8.30pm on Saturday 27 March. Firms involved include magic circle players Allen & Overy; ...
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Nice little earner, me Lord
Obiter would rather be a judge than a miner, and we have the Latin (as the name suggests). Indeed, to quote the late Peter Cook, we have the Latin for the judgin’ (Oxford and Cambridge A-level, 1987). Sitting in yer nice warm guildhalls ...
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Shamed into action
Joshua Rozenberg’s view that there is ‘nothing to be gained by an arrest of someone who is never going to be prosecuted’ may be good legal analysis but it lacks political sense (see [2010] Gazette, 18 March, 8).
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Prosecution defence
Your story ‘"Justice on the cheap" sparks outcry’ (See [2010] Gazette, 18 March, 1) paints a wholly inaccurate picture of Crown Prosecution Service associate prosecutors (APs).
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Friendly advice
Mark Stephens, of law firm Finers Stephens Innocent, said that Davenport Lyons’ methodology for handling illegal file-sharing cases conforms to industry best practice, and has been adopted in the Digital Economy Bill currently going through parliament (See ‘File-sharing "bully tactics"’, [2010] Gazette, 11 March, 4)’.
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Lawyers left with egg on their faces
As a hard-pressed legal aid family lawyer, I was in desperate need of comfort food recently. So I popped out for a chocolate cream egg, which cost 46p. I was shocked by the price but, revived by the rush of sugar, I had a quick look at my ‘At A ...
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Scotland’s high street solicitors are on the march against ‘Tesco law’
The government wants to open up the legal market and give consumers more choice by lifting restrictions that prevent solicitors from working in business structures that include non-lawyers. Sounds familiar? Not when I tell you that the government’s plans were almost derailed last week by high ...
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We must embrace international talent in order to remain a global legal hub
If English law sits at the centre of international business, international business remains central to the strength of the English and Welsh legal sector. Our legal sector remains pre-eminent across the globe, thanks to the traditions and the talent of our law and our lawyers. ...
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Solicitors should compete with the bar at all levels, including the judiciary
By District Judge Monty Trent, who sits at the Mayor’s and City of London Court. He is the new president of the Association of Her Majesty’s District Judges I threw away my business cards, diaries and timesheets and waved good riddance to the telephones on my ...
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Principles-based regulation must not mean ‘regulation-lite’
A regulator cannot expect to be liked. Perhaps the best it can hope for is to be grudgingly respected. To that end the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s bold shift to outcome-focused and entity-based regulation has to be welcomed by solicitors.
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Newspaper sales, Volvo acquisition and lottery numbers
Paper chain: US firm Mayer Brown advised publisher Independent News & Media on selling the Independent, the Independent on Sunday and independent.co.uk to billionaire Alexander Lebedev’s publisher Independent Print, advised by London firm Tulloch & Co. ...
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Indian lawyers accuse 31 foreign law firms of practising law illegally
A collective of Indian lawyers has accused 31 foreign law firms of practising law illegally in India, while simultaneously criticising the Indian government for failing to act on the alleged illegal practice. A writ petition filed with the Madras High Court on 18 March names ...
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EC attacks claim that legal professional privilege is a fundamental right
The European Commission has argued that any claim that legal professional privilege is a fundamental right under EU law is ‘superficial’. In the Akzo Nobel appeal hearing at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in February, the commission also argued that in-house lawyers could not be ...
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MoJ publishes details of firm meetings to promote transparency
The Ministry of Justice has published details of the law firms and other external groups it held meetings with in the last quarter of 2009, as part of a new policy of greater transparency. The document reveals that lord chancellor Jack Straw met nine large legal ...