All articles by Jonathan Rayner – Page 44
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News
Excellence award shortlist published
The outstanding achievements of legal professionals across England and Wales have been recognised by the judges of the Law Society’s Excellence Awards. High-achieving individual solicitors and teams across the entire legal sector have been shortlisted in categories ranging from Excellence in Community Investment to Excellence in ...
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Law firms reduce carbon footprint
Legal services is among the UK’s most successful business sector for reducing carbon emissions, a report released today reveals. The report, from HRH the Prince of Wales’ Mayday Network, a group of 2,862 companies working towards a sustainable future, found that network constituents had together reduced ...
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New human rights body must be independent, says Law Society
The Law Society has welcomed foreign secretary William Hague’s decision to create an advisory body of independent human rights experts that will not be influenced by other policy considerations. Hague’s group will draw on the advice of key NGOs, independent experts and others. The aim is ...
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Lord Bingham – lawyers pay tribute
Tributes have been paid to Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the ‘most respected, distinguished and admired judge of our times’, who died at his home in Wales on 11 September, aged 76.
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Why doesn’t everyone get a will?
Intimations of mortality, to adapt a phrase from William Wordsworth, concentrate the mind wonderfully on the need to prepare a will.
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Council first for LawWorks pro bono project
Lawyers at Sutton Council are to become the first local authority legal team to volunteer their services to the LawWorks pro bono project. The 14 solicitors and three barristers in Sutton’s legal team are signing up to the charity, which provides free legal help to ...
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Firms see boom in high-value litigation
A quarter of litigation disputes involve claims of more than £3m, and legal costs exceed £500,000 in 10% of cases, a survey of the heads of litigation at the UK’s top 200 law firms has revealed. The research, commissioned by Harbour Litigation Funding, showed that commercial ...
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Should corporations be bound by human rights treaties?
Human rights treaties bind states, not big business. And yet some multinational corporations are virtually states in themselves.
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New law firm model could ease PII woes
A law firm has developed an innovative new structure that it believes could help small firms and sole practitioners obtain professional indemnity insurance (PII). Virtual firm Scott-Moncrieff Harbour & Sinclair (Scomo) will join up with a small number of other firms under one ‘umbrella LLP’ that ...
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Defra lawyers face savage job cuts
A government department is to make 42 lawyers redundant, the Gazette has learned, as solicitors warn of more job losses to come in public sector legal teams. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is to make 40% of its 87 solicitors and 18 ...
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Comparison website offers free legal expenses insurance
A new website that compares solicitors by price, location and customer ratings has begun offering clients a free legal expenses insurance policy for road traffic accident (RTA) claims, it emerged last week. Legalcompare.com, which launched in August after 18 months of testing by consumer panels, is ...
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UK lawyer delegation suffer Colombia rights rebuff
A delegation of UK lawyers which visited Colombia last week to investigate the persecution and murder of human rights lawyers had permission to inspect the country’s overcrowded and violent prisons withdrawn. Delegates from the Law Society, Bar Council and Institute of Legal Executives were part of ...
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FCO decision on human rights report 'puts businesses at risk'
The Law Society has warned that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) decision to cease publishing its annual report on human rights abuses worldwide could mean that British businesses will be exposed to an increased ‘risk factor’ overseas. In 1997 the then foreign secretary Robin Cook ...
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Treasury attacked over equality impact of budget
HM Treasury has missed the deadline for responding to papers filed by a gender equality pressure group seeking a judicial review of the coalition’s first budget, it emerged last week. The Fawcett Society is claiming that the Treasury failed to fulfil its gender equality duty when ...
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Exclusive: Legal price comparison site set to break new ground
Law firms have been invited to register for free on what is claimed to be the first legal services price comparison website to give consumers instant details of costs. Nick Miller, who has practised in the Hull area as a high street practitioner for 22 years, ...
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Why some lawyers are turning away from the goal of equity partnership
Pity those poor equity partners. They may pocket an eye-watering wedge of the profits and dictate how the firm is run, but there can be a heavy price to pay.
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Do concerns over rule of law in the Maldives signal trouble in paradise?
A crisis is brewing in the paradise islands of the Maldives.
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News
Lawyers call for safeguards in EU investigation scheme
A planned EU-wide scheme that will make it easier for the police forces of member states to share evidence in their fight against international crime could have ‘grave implications’ for civil liberties, lawyers have warned. Home secretary Theresa May announced last week that the government would ...
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News
Outcry over erosion of rule of law in Maldives
A former Maldives attorney general has called on the Law Society to lead a mission to the country to assess the erosion of the rule of law, as judges are assaulted, courts suspended, and citizens’ rights ‘crushed under foot’, he claimed. Dr Hassan Saeed told the ...
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Lord chief justice defends trial by jury
The lord chief justice emphasised the importance of trial by jury last week as the Court of Appeal overturned two High Court decisions that trials could proceed without a jury. Sir Igor Judge said that judge-alone trials should only proceed ‘as a last resort’. ...