Headlines – Page 1577
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Old Obiter's Almanac for 2009
JanuaryCity firm DLA Piper installs a multi-megawatt wind turbine atop its Noble Street office as part of scheme to cut carbon emissions to zero. Election fever mounts. ...
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Tinkling the ivories
Following our request for solicitor musicians, Obiter received a picture of Graham Spittle, a past president of Hertfordshire Law Society, pulling out the stops at the chapel organ of Downing College Cambridge on 18 December. The occasion was the candlelit carol service arranged each year, for solicitors, barristers, academics and ...
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Booby prize
A year ago we brought you the gift that keeps on giving – the partner profiles on the website of north-west firm DWF. Each profile is accompanied by a stylish black-and-white photograph of the partner, an office chair – and a representation of a particular interest of theirs. ...
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Moving with the times
I hope that you are suitably rested after the Christmas break, and may I wish you all a happy new year. I am now halfway through my year as president of the Law Society. It is at this point that my fellow office holders and I take stock of our ...
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Firms a step closer to setting up in India
The Indian government has taken an important legislative step toward opening up the country’s legal market to foreign firms. Last month the Indian parliament finally passed a bill allowing the formation of limited liability partnerships. Originally introduced in January 2006, the bill itself will not ...
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Costs-capping order appeal
The High Court will next week hear an appeal against what is thought to be the first costs-capping order made against a defendant. Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly had estimated its costs of defending an action brought by Susan James over alleged side-effects of the drug Zyprexa ...
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Legal profession ‘snapshot’
An official quarterly report on the state of the legal profession is to be released for the first time this year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority revealed this week. The ‘snapshot’ will include the number of firms opening and closing and the number of solicitors practising ...
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Forced retirement backing
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has rejected the ‘stereotyped assumption’ that law firm partners will underperform by the time they reach the age of 65. However, the ruling otherwise backed a compulsory retirement age in a discrimination claim brought by former senior partner Leslie Seldon against Kent firm Clarkson Wright & ...
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Dire warning for conveyancers
Survival will be the ‘name of the game’ in conveyancing over the next year, as practitioners forecast falling sales and more job cuts, with medium-sized firms hardest hit. Peter Rodd, chairman of the Law Society’s property section, predicted ‘a dire market without any sign of improvement ...
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Criminal defence lawyers call for all police forces to provide interpreters
Criminal defence lawyers have launched a campaign to ensure all police forces provide qualified interpreters to non-English speaking detainees at police stations. A 2007 national agreement on the use of interpreters – drawn up by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform in consultation with the Association ...
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Fees scheme may defuse VHCC row
A breakthrough in the dispute threatening to disrupt trials of very high cost criminal cases (VHCCs) could be in sight following the publication of new funding proposals. The Legal Services Commission is proposing to set up separate payment schemes for litigators and advocates, moving away ...
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Retreat over sole practitioner fee hike
Fierce protests have helped persuade the Solicitors Regulation Authority to ditch plans to charge sole practitioners an additional £300 on top of their practising certificates (see [2008] Gazette, 18 December, 1). The SRA had proposed £300 as an interim solution pending a comprehensive review of fees ...
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Culture shift needed to ease bench route
The tribunals system offers valuable opportunities for solicitors to get a foot on the judicial ladder, but a ‘culture change’ within firms is needed before more can make it onto the bench, a senior solicitor judge has told the Gazette. Gary Hickinbottom, the Deputy Senior President ...
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Family lawyers braced for surge in divorce cases
Family lawyers are bracing themselves for what looks set to be a rush of couples starting divorce proceedings next week. The first Monday after children return to school following Christmas is traditionally the busiest day in the divorce lawyer’s calendar. This year that day falls on ...
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SRA scraps solo fee hike
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has scrapped plans to charge sole practitioners an additional practising fee of £300. At a meeting of the SRA Board (see Gazette 18 December 2008), members indicated that a fee for sole practitioners should be less than the £180 payable by ...
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Solicitors turned authors reveal what it takes to get published
‘I still feel like a lawyer who writes,’ says Neil White. ‘I’m trying to get my head around the idea that I’m a writer who’s a lawyer. It still feels like a bit of a hobby.’ But signing your second three-book deal with HarperCollins, as he has just done, should ...
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Loss on sale relief and bankruptcy of a residuary beneficiary
There is something of a credit crunch flavour to this update, as it covers bankruptcy and inheritance tax problems caused by falling values.
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Human rights
Constitutional law – Aliens - Constitutional reform - EC law - Right to free elections- Sark R (on the application of Barclay & Ors) v Secretary of State for Justice & Ors: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Pill, Jacob, ...
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Dame Hazel Genn warns of 'downgrading' of civil justice
Mediation ‘is not about just settlement’, said Professor Dame Hazel Genn earlier this month. ‘It is just about settlement.’ This pithy attack on received wisdom aptly summed up three excoriating Hamlyn lectures in which the professor of socio-legal studies at University College London stripped away some ...
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Digesting the best reads for Christmas
SilksDick Francis, Felix FrancisMichael Joseph, £18.99 The doyen of British thriller writers returns (with the help of his son) for his 41st time over the jumps, this time colliding his beloved world of horseracing with that of m’learned friends.