Headlines – Page 1529
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Don't overreact to downturn, says professional services group
Law firms operating in the UK will fall behind firms in foreign markets unless specific regulatory burdens are lifted, according to government officials and law firm chiefs. In its first report, submitted to Chancellor Alistair Darling this week, the Professional Services Global Competitiveness Group (PSGC) ...
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Chancery Lane seeks tax concession
The Law Society has warned that taxing law firms on work they have yet to be paid for could result in small practices getting into financial trouble. President Paul Marsh has written to HM Revenue & Customs asking the authority to suspend the UITF 40 ...
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Free movement of people and adopting EU provisions
To be free or not to be – that is the question for the UK government as it continues to struggle to implement the free movement of people provision, some 50 years after the establishment of the EU.
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Family law
Care – Children – Committal for contempt – Penal notices Re PB (children) sub nom a local authority v (1) HP (2) MB: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Thorpe, Wall, Moore-Bick): 27 February 2009 ...
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Insolvency
Data protection – Serious fraud cases – Transfer of data in the public interest In the matter of Madoff Securities International Ltd: ChD (Mr Justice Lewison): 27 February 2009
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Manchester is making the most of the recession
Manchester University recently lost to an Oxford college in a hard-fought final of University Challenge, but there was a silver lining; the result was overturned after one of the Oxford ‘students’ was discovered to be a trainee accountant. The city’s legal market is experiencing equally mixed fortunes. Like everywhere else ...
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Stifling information damages democracy
Sarah Webb is wrong to say there is no problem with costs in publication proceedings (see [2009] Gazette, 5 March, 10).
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Jack Straw and legal aid
Let us be grateful to the lord chancellor at least for his frank warning that lawyers dependent on state funding would be ‘wise to reconsider’ their expectations of earnings (see [2009] Gazette, 12 March, 1).
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Constructive dialogue
I write in response to the comments made by Richard Charlton about the fixed fees that apply to legally aided mental health work (see [2009] Gazette, 5 March, 14-15).
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Fixed fees fall-out
The current proposals from the Legal Services Commission in relation to fixed fees for family cases are likely to have an adverse effect on children, families and the administration of justice.
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Upholding decency
I read with much emotion and ever-increasing indignation the brave and intimate feature by Jonathan Rayner concerning the serial failure of the ‘system’ to deal humanely or in any way appropriately with his son ‘Patrick’, particularly once the latter was introduced into the criminal process (see [2009] Gazette, 5 March, ...
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Age-old concern
Joyce Glasser’s letter about students and newly qualifieds in their late-30s or 40s and 50s, captured the situation in a nutshell (see [2009] Gazette, 19 February, 11). I am a newly qualified solicitor who was also made redundant on qualification due to organisational structure changes.
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Trading blows
On 26 February you carried a special In Business report, ‘Marketing – the next generation’ (see [2009] Gazette, 26 February, 12-14). Significantly, both articles were written by marketeers and predict the demise of solicitors, when large corporate businesses are expected to enter the solicitors’ market.
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The ‘rules of the game’ on terror have not changed
The International Commission of Jurists was lucky in the timing of its report on counter-terrorism and human rights: Assessing Damage, Urging Action. In the US, the new administration of President Obama was but a month old, promising a review of his predecessor’s ‘war on terror’. ...
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Legislation planned to bar solicitors convicted of fraud from practice
Plea negotiations are to be introduced and Crown Court powers will be extended to make fraud prosecutions more effective, Attorney General Baroness Scotland (pictured) announced today (18 March). Legislation is also planned to allow the Crown Court to bar convicted fraudsters from practising in certain key professions, including as a ...
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Quality before price
Ian McLachlan’s view (see [2009] Gazette, 19 February, 11) is worrying from a professional indemnity and risk management point of view.
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Murder conviction quashed after 27 years
A man who has spent the last 27 years in prison had his conviction for rape and murder quashed by the Court of Appeal today (18 March). Sean Hodgson, now 57, was given a life sentence in 1982 for the murder of barmaid Teresa de Simone, ...
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Legal aid lawyers are paying the price for economic disaster
The principal lesson of the financial crash – that markets are not always the best solution for all areas of society – appears lost on Jack Straw (see [2009] Gazette, 12 March, 1). As trillions of pounds are thrown at banks, it seems that legal aid practitioners must pay the ...
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Saying the right things
Few lawyers can name the eight official branches of the legal profession – solicitor, barrister, legal executive, licensed conveyancer, trademark attorney, patent agent, notary and costs lawyer/draftsman – but juggling their different demands and needs is one of the many tasks facing the Legal Services Board.