Headlines – Page 1520
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Taylor Wessing asks staff to buy extra holiday
City firm Taylor Wessing is to cut up to nine associates and nine support staff and has asked all staff to buy extra holiday by means of a salary cut. The firm said today (21 April) that the latter proposal is ‘one of a number of ...
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Next generation
As if grown-up clients weren’t trouble enough, staff at City firm Nabarro have taken to working with 14-year-olds. As part of a corporate social responsibility drive, seven volunteers spent a day with 25 pupils at Westminster Academy to teach them how the commercial world works. The ‘Project Business’ programme aims ...
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Star trekker
When Obiter called Paola Fudakowska, solicitor at City firm Withers, she admitted feeling a bit ropey. ‘We had a fundraiser last night – wine-tasting at Vivat Bacchus.’ Such are the hardships one must suffer on the way to Everest base camp. Fudakowska (pictured) is one ...
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Speedy recovery
Last week’s Obiter brought you what was almost undoubtedly history’s longest-running lawsuit – Crown v City of London. (James I issued proceedings in 1613 claiming ownership of Smithfield Market. Judgment was given some 379 years later.)
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Why effective representation in police stations is vital
Ed Cape is a solicitor. If you are a criminal practitioner you will know his name – he is an expert on the role of police station duty solicitors. For many years he practised in the Bristol St Paul’s area.
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Law Society President on solicitors in the judiciary
‘Yes, I could have been a judge but I never had the Latin, never had the Latin for the judging. I just never had sufficient of it to get through the rigorous judging exams.’
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LDP disadvantage
The article regarding the introduction of legal disciplinary practices concluded that because only 14 LDPs were up and running on the day the new regime came into force, the profession has ‘snubbed’ the whole idea.
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Mistaken identity
It does not follow, as argued in your Opinion column last week, that ‘solicitors are going to be early adopters of the ID infrastructure, whether they like it or not’.
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Unnecessary veto
Joshua Rozenberg asks if the attorney general should have a power of veto over arrests for war crimes (see [2009] Gazette, 9 April, 7). Such a veto over judicial arrest warrants is unnecessary, given that there is no evidence that this power has been misused by the judiciary.
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Associate prosecutor fears
It is a long time since I practised criminal law, but I have been a civil courts judge for 16 years so I know the value of good advocacy anywhere. I would like to comment on the letter ‘For the defence’ from the chief crown prosecutor Barry Hughes...
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Worm turns on insurance fraud
The first private contempt of court case against a lying third-party personal injury claimant marks a tipping point for the insurance industry.
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Personal injury fraudster found guilty of contempt
In a landmark move against fraudulent personal injury claims, the High Court has found a claimant in contempt of court for exaggerating her injuries. She must now pay her own £125,000 legal bill, a £2,500 fine for contempt and half the defendant’s legal costs.
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KBF executives set up new legal lending firm
Executives behind the Iceland-funded legal lender that collapsed amid last autumn’s banking crisis have launched a new venture, offering a similar service based on what they say is a more robust funding model. Key Business Finance (KBF), which supplied nearly 15% of law firms in ...
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John Wotton wins Law Society deputy vice-presidential election
John Wotton of magic circle firm Allen & Overy is set to become president of the Law Society in 2011 after this week winning the election for deputy vice-president. Wotton, 54, was a partner at Allen & Overy for 23 years and is now a consultant ...
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Plan for chief legal officer splits local government solicitors
A proposal that every local authority be required to appoint a qualified chief legal officer has attracted split responses from 70 different organisations. The Law Society and Solicitors in Local Government have proposed a change in the law to create the new role, replacing that ...
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Law Society to shoulder 90% of the cost of Legal Services Board
The Law Society will have to bear more than 90% of the initial set-up and running costs of the Legal Services Board and Office for Legal Complaints under plans published last week. Proposals for a levy to raise £15.1m for the new bodies appear ...
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Family practitioners condemn the government’s flat-fee proposals
Practitioner groups have condemned as ‘disastrous’ and ‘ill-considered’ proposals to change the way family lawyers are paid, claiming they will leave vulnerable families and children without adequate representation. The Family Justice Council said plans to introduce a fixed-fee advocacy scheme for family legal aid cases from ...
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MoJ and Insurance Fraud Bureau to share data on fraud
Data on criminal syndicates and solicitors involved in personal injury compensation scams will be shared between the Ministry of Justice and the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) under a new agreement, the Gazette has learned. The agreement will allow the MoJ and IFB, the insurance industry-funded fraud ...
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Top city firms tight-lipped on future of graduate training schemes
Two top City firms have remained tight-lipped over the future of their specialist graduate training schemes after asking prospective trainees to start work a year later than planned. Magic circle firms Clifford Chance and Linklaters, which have asked prospective trainees to volunteer to defer for a ...
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Olswang to make patent attorney partner in LDP move
City firm Olswang has become one of the first big corporate firms to take advantage of new business structure changes enabled by the Legal Services Act. The firm has applied to have one of its patent attorneys made a partner in the firm following the promotion ...