All articles by Jonathan Rayner – Page 24
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Law Society at ABA conference
Law Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff is to discuss strengthening links between the UK legal profession and the world’s developing and mature economies at a global meeting of 8,000 lawyers. Scott-Moncrieff, attending the American Bar Association (ABA) conference in Chicago between 2-7 August, will also meet with ...
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Leading firms sign up to judicial recruitment campaign
Magic circle and other top law firms are spearheading a campaign to encourage more senior solicitors to apply for judicial office. The initiative follows the failure of earlier attempts to bring more solicitors into the judiciary. As the Gazette revealed last year, a committee of senior ...
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Magic circle retention rates hold up
Magic circle firm Clifford Chance has retained 48 of 62 trainees, a retention rate of 77%, it revealed this week, in a clutch of announcements of trainee retention figures at City and international firms.
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Forensic science vandalism
He is almost 70 years old and still manning the barricades nearly 24 years after his most high-profile triumph as a solicitor - the freeing of four victims of a miscarriage of justice who had spent 15 years in prison for a crime they did not commit.
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Employment lawyers slam ‘out-of-the-blue’ reform plans
A group representing 6,000 employment lawyers has savaged government plans to cut red tape for businesses, claiming that they will prolong rather than settle disputes and stretch resources ‘beyond breaking point’. The Employment Lawyers Association (ELA) says that the proposals, in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform ...
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Supreme Court backs ‘unbeliever’ asylum right
The Supreme Court today unanimously upheld the right of asylum seekers not to be forced to hold, seem to hold or express a political opinion in order to protect themselves from persecution in their own countries. The judgment, for the first time, makes the law clear ...
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Are you deaf-aware?
My cousin committed suicide, aged 35. He took an overdose and left two children and a wife, but no note. My uncle’s theory was that he killed himself because he was going deaf. ‘Deafness isolates you,’ said my uncle, who himself wore a hearing aid. ‘It’s easy to become lonely ...
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Society ‘dismayed’ at AML penalty stance
HM Treasury has decided to retain criminal penalties for breaches of anti-money laundering (AML) regulations and not to exempt even the smallest firms from the administrative burden of compliance. The decisions, published last week in the Treasury’s response to a consultation that began in 2009, have ...
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Borders agency slammed for under-performance
Members of Parliament today criticised the UK Border Agency (UKBA) for failing to clear a 276,460 cases backlog - equivalent to the ‘entire population of Newcastle upon Tyne’. The backlog includes 150,000 individuals in the migration refusal pool and 3,900 foreign national prisoners who should have ...
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‘Frumpy legal profession’ in need of revolution
The threats and challenges faced by lawyers can be blamed on the ‘egregious failure of a frumpy profession’ to reform itself in line with the rapidly changing legal landscape, a Canadian law professor told the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) Symposium in Manchester last week.
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European court in judicial selection crisis
The crisis in Europe’s top court was set to escalate this week, with the 27 EU member states arguing over how to select 12 more judges to help handle a mounting caseload. The president of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which is ...
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Appeal to test article eight right over private property
Squatters occupying the likely site of Heathrow’s proposed third runway were yesterday given a six-week stay of eviction to appeal under article eight of the Human Rights Act, the right to home and family life. The site is privately owned and this will be the first ...
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Legal framework for immigration ‘collapses’
The legal framework for UK immigration policy is in disarray following today’s Supreme Court ruling that UK Border Agency (UKBA) policies on corporate immigration are unlawful. The court, in a unanimous decision, ruled that much of the UKBA’s practice and policies for corporate immigration are unlawful ...
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City firm overturns TUPE ruling in Jarvis case
Employment contracts of solicitors made redundant when their employers go into administration should not automatically transfer to law firms acting for the administrators, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruled yesterday. The ruling on transfer of undertakings, protection of employment (TUPE) regulations, will free administrators to instruct their own legal advisers. ...
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‘Cut partner bonuses for diversity failures’
Law firm partners who fail to take ‘robust measures’ to meet diversity targets should be financially penalised, according to a leading pro-diversity group. A report from the InterLaw Diversity Forum for LGBT Networks argues that the profession remains ‘stuck culturally in the mid-20th century’. ...
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Training review: a collegiate sense of déjà vu
There was a distinct sense of déjà vu about the sense of déjà vu I felt at the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) symposium in Manchester last week. The LETR, sponsored by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Bar Standards Board and Chartered Institute of Legal Executive ...
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CILEx president in new rights plea
Newly qualified legal executives are more experienced and knowledgeable than their solicitor counterparts, the new president of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) claimed in his inaugural speech last week. Nick Hanning said legal executives are ‘the equal of any other type of lawyer’ and ...
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Law applicants unfazed by tuition fee rise
The number of students applying to read law at university appears to have held up well this year, despite a near 9% fall in applications across all degree subjects in the UK. Statistics released earlier this week by UCAS reveal that 50,000 fewer UK applicants have ...
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Judicial applications up 17%
A record number of candidates applied for judicial appointments last year, the Judicial Appointment Commission’s latest annual report reveals. There were 5,490 applications in 2011-12, of which 746 resulted in the appointment of tribunal chairs, recorders, district judges, deputy district judges, circuit judges and high court ...
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ABS pioneer condemns ‘over-qualification’ in firms
Law firms have for too long relied upon 'closed clubs of equity partners' to keep fees artificially high, a speaker from one of the first wave of alternative business structures told the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) Symposium in Manchester today.