All articles by Jonathan Rayner – Page 17
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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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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
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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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
Will-writing could still be regulated
Will-writing could eventually be brought within the scope of regulation, despite the government’s spurning of the profession’s call to make it a reserved activity. Justice secretary Chris Grayling last week responded to the Legal Services Board’s recommendation for regulation by saying there was insufficient evidence ...
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News
LETR ‘delayed by regulators’
The much-delayed final report of the Legal Education & Training Review (LETR) research team was completed on time and could have been published as planned in December 2012, but was stalled when the regulators insisted on a version three times the size of the original, the Gazette can exclusively reveal.
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News
UK turns back on EU justice project
The UK will decline to take part in a European Commission (EC) initiative to launch a ‘European justice scoreboard’ that aims to improve justice systems across the continent, justice secretary Chris Grayling told the House of Commons earlier this week.
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News
Saudi Arabia accepts registration of female lawyer
Arwa Al-Hujaili has become Saudi Arabia’s first female lawyer – but only after spending three years post-graduation petitioning the kingdom’s Ministry of Justice to register her as a trainee. However, Al-Hujaili’s problems may have only just begun: any Saudi judge who disapproves of women speaking in ...
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News
Don’t worry about Jackson fallout – judge
The High Court judge responsible for implementing the Jackson civil litigation reforms has made two speeches seeking to allay lawyers’ fears about the reforms’ impact. Speaking to the Commercial Litigation Association annual conference, Mr Justice Ramsey urged more ‘hot-tubbing’ of expert witnesses to improve the ...
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News
Grayling says no to regulating will-writing
Justice secretary Chris Grayling has today rebuffed a recommendation from super-regulator the Legal Services Board that will-writing should be regulated. In a Ministry of Justice statement, he said that an LSB report claiming that there is ‘consumer detriment’ in the will-writing market did not adequately ...
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News
Call for solicitors to use British Sign Language
Research has highlighted the need for solicitors to learn British Sign Language (BSL) so that deaf people have the same access to legal advice as their hearing counterparts. The research, published last week to coincide with Deaf Awareness Week, found that 85% of deaf people prefer ...
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News
Economy 'testing access to justice'
Access to justice is being tested by the ‘worst economic situation since world war II’, the president of the Athens bar told a pan-European delegation of lawyers today. In his keynote address, Ioannis Adamopoulos added that no matter how bad the economic climate, it was important ...
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News
Facebook and flexible friends
It’s been a time of contrast for the fortunes of women in the workforce. On the one hand, we had Nicola Mendelsohn. Who she? She’s the business high-flyer who is the antithesis of presenteeism. She’s flexible working personified. She is, to put it alliteratively, the three-day ...
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News
Insurance defendant firms to merge
Two national firms are merging to create a £90m defendant insurance litigation business with more than 1,200 staff. Dispute resolution firm Greenwoods is to join insurance firm Plexus Law under the umbrella of the £150m Parabis Law group. The two firms have already signed heads of ...
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News
Deadline looming to stay on the roll, SRA warns
Solicitors without a practising certificate who wish to remain on the roll have six weeks left in which to apply online, the Solicitors Regulation Authority reminded the profession today. The deadline for applications is 18 June. According to the regulator, 26% of the estimated total of ...
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News
Grayling to face crime lawyers
The Law Society has secured two face-to-face meetings between criminal legal aid practitioners and justice secretary Chris Grayling to discuss government proposals for price-competitive tendering (PCT) and other contentious issues - the first such meetings of this kind. As the Gazette reported on Monday, most leading ...
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News
Guidance for law firms collecting diversity data
The Law Society has published a guidance note to help firms collect and publish diversity data about their workforces. This year is the first that firms have been required to make their own arrangements. Last year the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) sent out an online questionnaire ...
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ProfileRupert Scrase
Rupert Scrase, the chair-elect of the Sole Practitioners Group, says why he has confidence in the sector.
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News
Lord Judge and eternal vigilance
When you are lord chief justice a spot of self-deprecation tends to go unnoticed. After all, you’ve reached the top of the tree, have an unimpeachable track record and everybody hangs on your every word. Nobody’s going to take seriously your claim that you have made the most stupid observation ...
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News
Scrap ‘flawed’ asylum system, says Society
The UK’s asylum process should be scrapped in favour of a ‘new blueprint’ that will reduce delays and ensure greater fairness and accountability in the treatment of asylum-seekers, the Law Society’s immigration law committee told MPs last week. The revised process would address the ‘deep systemic ...