All articles by Jonathan Rayner – Page 16
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ProfileNicholas Fluck
The new Law Society president talks about his ambitions for the year ahead and why the primacy of English law unites the profession.
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NewsMPs have hearts, too
The green shoots of recovery are at last peeping through the arid soil of austerity as one deserving group of public sector workers are promised an inflation-busting 9% pay rise just days before laying down tools for their six-week summer break. I refer, of course, to our members of parliament ...
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News
SRA’s 2013 diversity data collection system goes live
Firms can now report their workforce diversity data, including sexual orientation, ethnicity, age and gender, through a new online facility on mySRA, the Solicitors Regulation Authority announced today. Collection of this data is a Legal Services Board requirement to promote transparency and diversity in the legal services market, the SRA ...
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News
Petition calls for civil claims centre closure
An online petition is calling on the government to halt the ‘industrialisation of the judicial system’ by immediately shutting down the Salford civil claims centre. The centre, which was opened in early 2012, is the HM Courts & Tribunals Service’s (HMCTS) centralised facility for handling civil claims. It aims to ...
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FeatureInternational Marketplace Conference: report
London is the global hub for legal services and English law remains the law of choice for business transactions worldwide.
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News
New rules that may dilute TUPE rights delayed until September
New regulations that may reduce transfer of undertakings protection of employment (TUPE) rights have been delayed to September, it emerged this week. The new regulations, which had been due for publication in July, arise from a Department for Business, Innovation & Skills consultation that began at the beginning of this ...
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News
EC unveils European public prosecutor plan
A European Public Prosecutor’s Office will tackle the annual loss to fraud of £431m of EU funds according to proposals published by the European Commission yesterday. The proposed office will follow up every case of suspected fraud against the EU budget. This will have a strong deterrent effect, the EC ...
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News
Accountants challenged by Society over ‘flawed’ application
The Law Society has condemned the ‘seriously flawed’ application by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales (ICAEW) to become an approved licensing body for the grant of probate, it emerged last week. In a letter to Legal Services Board (LSB) chief executive Chris Kenny, the Society accuses ...
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News
Turkish lawyers harassed, arrested and detained
Dozens of Turkish lawyers arrested 18 months ago have been subjected to ‘excessively punitive’ treatment by state authorities, with 15 of the 46 still detained in prison, an international delegation of lawyers reports. The trial of the 46 has been consistently delayed, with three-month gaps between one-day hearings, ‘causing extreme ...
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ProfileLucy Scott-Moncrieff
The outgoing president of the Law Society talks about the key challenges of her tenure.
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News
LETR – jobs for the boys
Maybe I’m just a cynical old hack, but does anyone else think that the long-awaited, much-delayed final report of the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) is focused more on safeguarding long-term jobs for the regulators than on improving the education and training of lawyers? Everywhere ...
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News
Lasting powers of attorney applications go on web
An online tool designed to eliminate errors in the application process for lasting powers of attorney (LPA) has gone live today. Currently, almost a fifth of applications received by the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG), which manages the LPA scheme, contain mistakes. ...
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News
Carbon footprint down 7% in legal sector
The Law Society, Solicitors Regulation Authority and 57 law firms have reduced their per-head carbon emissions by nearly 7% since 2010, according to the sector’s annual environmental statement. The fall from 3.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in 2010 to 3.63 tonnes of CO2e ...
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News
Mass arrest of lawyers in Istanbul protests
The Law Society has condemned the mass arrest of more than 50 lawyers in Istanbul. The lawyers were taking part in a protest inside the Çağlayan Court, near Taksim Square, when they were arrested, detained and reportedly beaten by the police, the Society said. ...
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News
Legal firms struggling with new pensions scheme
A third of law firms are unsure how to handle the ‘tricky issues’ of compliance and administration surrounding auto-enrolment, the government scheme requiring employers to move workers into a pension plan, according to a survey. Failure to introduce a compliant scheme by your staging date ...
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News
Students warm to ABSs
A clear majority of law students (63%) believe that the advent of alternative business structures (ABSs) will provide wider employment opportunities for lawyers.
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News
Society victory over banks’ derivatives products
The Law Society has persuaded the government to allow retail banks to offer derivatives products to business customers
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Feature
Troika measures making law ‘yesterday’s business’
The law has become ‘yesterday’s business’ in swathes of the EU as a combination of austerity and measures pushed through by the International Monetary Fund, European Commission (EC) and European Central Bank drive law firms to the brink of insolvency, the Gazette heard at the CCBE plenary session.
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News
Colombia lawyers ‘still persecuted’ - Caravana report
Assassinations, death threats, unlawful detention and other abuses of lawyers continue unchecked in Colombia
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News
Former partner loses six-year discrimination case
A six-year employment dispute involving a law firm is finally over