Headlines – Page 1437
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Civil procedure
Costs – Personal injury – Allocation – Detailed assessment Drew v Whitbread: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Waller (vice-president), Hooper, Etherton): 9 February 2010 The appellant (D) appealed against ...
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Local government
Environmental health – Buildings – Burials and cremation – Religions R (on the application of Ghai) (appellant) v Newcastle City Council and Others (respondent) and Secretary of State for Justice (interested party) and (1) Ramgharia Gurdwara, Hitchin (2) ...
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Employment
Local government – Bonus payments – Equal pay – Sex discrimination Gibson and Others v Sheffield City Council: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Pill, Maurice Kay, Lady Justice Smith): 10 February 2010 ...
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Data page for February 2010
The data page is the financial rates and data compiled for the Law Society Gazette by MoneyFacts group, the UK's largest supplier of savings and mortgage data. DownloadsDownload the data ...
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The controversial business of tracing beneficiaries of unclaimed estates
In May 2009, Trevor Moore, a 61-year-old IT consultant from Hertfordshire, was alerted to the existence of a hitherto unknown cousin by the approach of a one-man-band probate research company that was looking for potential beneficiaries for an unclaimed estate. Trevor was told it ‘probably wasn’t you’, but this unsolicited ...
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Roar deal
Jennie Swaby, a child care solicitor at Southampton firm Eric Robinson (pictured with her husband Mark), has sent us this snap from her recent month-long stint as a volunteer at Antelope Park in Zimbabwe, which is the subject of the documentary Lion Country currently airing on ITV. Looks like she ...
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Commission impossible
As Obiter waits with bated breath to read Sir Ian Magee’s report on the Legal Services Commission (incidentally, there’s no word yet on when it might be published, even though the anticipated January delivery date has been and gone), there was even more bad news from the beleaguered quango last ...
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Lost in translation
Obiter’s mailbox has been inundated following last week’s request for amusing dictaphone bloopers.
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MoJ research has vindicated the jury system, but jurors need more help
by Ian Kelceychairman of the Law Society criminal law committee The publication of an important piece of Ministry of Justice-commissioned research by Professor Cheryl Thomas into the fairness of juries has aroused significant media interest.
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Finding alternative ways to fund legal aid
Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming general election, it would take a rash and rose-tinted legal sector observer to predict any real terms increases over the next few years in the UK’s £2bn legal aid budget. Talk of swingeing cuts at those government departments not ...
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Nationwide Autocentre sale and mining asset spinoff
Sales drive: North-west firm Brabners Chaffe Street advised car service and repair operator Nationwide Autocentres on its £73.2m sale to retailer Halfords, advised by national firm Pinsent Masons. Asset building: Magic circle ...
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Political lobby interests disclosed
Two MPs and one lord have taken up new lobbying or advisory roles connected with law firms over the past year, parliamentary registers show. New on the register is John Hutton, Labour MP for Barrow and Furness, who was paid £11,000 by national firm Eversheds to ...
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In-house warning over City law firm skills gap
Solicitors from the ‘cosseted environment’ of top City law firms have been denied the skills and experience they need to make the transition to an in-house role, leading general counsel have warned. In-house lawyers have complained that they cannot recruit the right candidate from private practice ...
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Immigration lawyers unhappy over new accreditation process
Immigration solicitors are concerned that they have been ‘singled out’ from other legal aid lawyers through the introduction of a new reaccreditation process. The compulsory immigration and asylum accreditation scheme, administered by the Law Society, was launched in 2004, with reaccreditation required after three years. ...
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Solicitor concerns over plans to scrap ARP
Solicitors have voiced concerns over ‘knee-jerk’ proposals to abolish the assigned risks pool (ARP) next year in their responses to a Solicitors Regulation Authority consultation on the issue. The Law Society said it did not support the SRA’s plan to scrap the pool, which it ...
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Law Society TUPE action reaches the High Court
The Law Society’s legal action against the Office for Legal Complaints and the government to determine whether employment protection rules apply to staff at the Legal Complaints Service was heard in the High Court last week. In December 2009, the Society issued proceedings seeking a declaration ...
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Two solicitors charged over £50m of mortgage frauds
Two solicitors have been charged with multiple offences related to a series of high-value commercial mortgage frauds worth around £50m in total. Mark Knights of Cheshire, 45, who worked at Manchester firm Mace & Jones at the time the frauds took place, appeared last Friday at ...
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Pioneering public sector alliance to offer 'budget' legal services
Cardiff and East Midlands law firm Geldards has teamed up with Kent County Council (KCC) to offer ‘budget’ legal services to the public sector across England and Wales. The two organisations have formed Law:Public, a public sector legal team of more than 100 lawyers, in what ...
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OFT calls for referral fee payment regulation
The Office of Fair Trading has recommended that the government consider legislation to regulate the payment of referral fees to estate agents, but stopped short of calling for them to be banned. In a report on home buying and selling published last week, the OFT said ...
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Poorer students cannot afford to become legal aid lawyers
Students from low-income backgrounds cannot afford to become legal aid lawyers, according to a report published today by the group for Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL). The report warned that legal aid lawyers were becoming less representative of the clients they help. ...