All articles by Jonathan Rayner – Page 27
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News
The (nearly) naked truth about unfair dismissal
So what does a lapdancer earning £200,000 a year have in common with a retired litigation partner from the Home Counties? Nice legs, perhaps? Or maybe they were both paid with ‘Heavenly Money’ vouchers that wealthy clients slipped into their garter belts? Nope. The answer is ...
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Minimum wage for Scottish trainees
Trainee solicitors in Scotland are set to be paid the national minimum wage of £6.08 an hour or more from June 2012, the Law Society of Scotland (LSS) has announced. The announcement came the same day that the LSS agreed a proposed cut in council member ...
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Solicitor rapped for ‘frustrating’ tribunal
The president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has backed an employment tribunal’s finding of ‘appalling’ behaviour by a solicitor in a strongly worded judgment.
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Strasbourg reform ‘watered down’
The coalition’s blueprint for the reform of Europe’s human rights court in Strasbourg achieved only limited changes after proposals to help clear the backlog of more than 150,000 cases were watered down or removed during negotiations.
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Supreme Court dismisses Seldon age discrimination appeal
The Supreme Court today ruled against a former equity partner who had brought an age discrimination case against his law firm for unlawfully making him retire aged 65. It sent the case back to the Employment Tribunal to decide an issue that remains outstanding.
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Stating the obvious
Here’s a worthwhile research project: what would you do with £12m? A vineyard in France, with an Aston Martin in the garage? Or would you spend it on a piece of research that concludes, surely to nobody’s surprise, that the law is not the best instrument to settle disputes about ...
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Brighton: we never sought seismic change, says Grieve
The UK government’s Brighton declaration on the future of Europe’s human rights court never set out to achieve ‘seismic’ change, but was more than mere political window-dressing, attorney general Dominic Grieve told the Gazette this morning. He said that ‘seismic’ change was not required because the ...
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Government plans 'could undermine human rights court'
Inflexible government proposals to tackle the backlog of 150,000 cases at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) could undermine the court’s credibility and deny access to justice, the Law Society has warned as an international conference on the court’s future begins today. The proposals, in ...
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Reservations as Clarke wins Strasbourg court reform deal
Forty-seven European states have adopted the final draft of the UK government’s proposed reforms of the Strasbourg human rights court, despite reservations expressed by some of the court’s top officials. These reservations include fears that national parliaments might attempt to compromise the independence of the court ...
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News
Court of Appeal rules in favour of age discrimination claim
The Court of Appeal (CoA) has ruled that a solicitor may bring an age discrimination claim against the firm that dismissed him just 10 days before it appointed a younger and less well-paid solicitor to do a similar job.
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Rights conference set to end in ‘fudge’
This week’s Brighton conference on the future of Europe’s human rights court will end in a meaningless ‘fudge’, with no serious debate to address the issues dividing the governments of the 47 European states attending, one of Britain’s leading political scientists has predicted. Dr Michael ...
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College of Law sold in £200m private equity deal
A private equity firm, Montagu, has bought the College of Law in a deal which it says has created a £200m charitable fund for legal education. The sale follows months of speculation, with Montagu Private Equity, media giant Pearson and Providence Private Equity all in the ...
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Serve deaf clients better 'or face claims'
Law firms could face unlimited discrimination claims from deaf and hard of hearing people if they continue failing to make ‘reasonable adjustments’, consumer watchdogs have warned.
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Law Society slams minimum salary consultation
Scrapping the minimum salary could force some trainee solicitors to claim housing benefits and take on second jobs, creating an image that will neither benefit the profession nor promote social mobility within it, the Law Society has warned. In its response to a Solicitors Regulation ...
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Border agency 'cynicism' behind appeal losses
‘Bad and cynical’ decision making lies behind the UK Border Agency’s (UKBA) continued record of losing half of all appeals against orders to remove immigrants and failed asylum seekers, it was alleged today. Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants legal policy director Hina Majid ...
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Drinking and casual sexism still institutional in top firms, LSB research claims
The legal profession’s culture of ‘casual sexism’ and high levels of drinking has led women and ethnic minority solicitors to adopt special strategies to overcome institutional discrimination in law firms, researchers funded by the Legal Services Board told a conference today. Some Asian women solicitors choose ...
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News
Hamza deportation no breach of article three, rights court rules
Abu Hamza and four other alleged terrorists are set to be extradited to the US following today’s European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruling that detention conditions and length of sentences in the US would not amount to ill-treatment. Proceedings against a sixth alleged terrorist, who ...
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Society wins clarity on independent advice
A Law Society campaign has led the government to re-draft legislation to remove uncertainty over whether a dismissed employee’s solicitor may be said to provide ‘independent’ advice on a compromise agreement. Compromise agreements are undertakings between employers and dismissed employees, whereby in return for a severance ...
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Cautious reception to SRA ‘racism’ report
Claims by the Society of Black Lawyers (SBL) that the Solicitors Regulation Authority is ‘institutionally racist’ have been given a cool reception by other individuals representing minority ethnic lawyers. The SBL’s report Breaking the Silence: who is regulating the regulator? accused the SRA of intervening on ...
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Workhouse legislation goes on bonfire of statutory dead wood
More than 800 pieces of ‘statutory dead wood’ from the 1600s and earlier would be scrapped under measures proposed today by the two bodies charged with tidying and modernising UK legislation. Laws identified for repeal include a 1696 act to fund the rebuilding of St Paul’s ...