All articles by Jonathan Rayner – Page 45
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Law firms entitled to set compulsory retirement age
A former law firm partner who accused his firm of acting unlawfully by making him retire at 65 has lost his age discrimination case in the Court of Appeal. Leslie Seldon, now 69, a former civil litigation partner at Kent law firm Clarkson Wright Jakes (CWJ), ...
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Halliwells administrator’s cash management warning
Professional firms must pay ‘far greater attention to cash management’ following the break-up of north-west firm Halliwells, the firm’s administrator warned last week. A deal to sell Halliwells’ Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield operations to three former rivals was completed last week, and Halliwells has now been ...
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City lawyer leads push for Indian market liberalisation
Clifford Chance senior partner Stuart Popham, the sole UK law firm representative in the prime minister’s trade delegation to India, is expected to meet determined opposition from the country’s legal establishment to any attempt at opening up the market to foreign law firms.
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Chancery Lane appoints chief assessors to lead best practice panels
The Law Society has begun the process of updating and reviewing its professional accreditation schemes with the appointment of three chief assessors. The new chief assessors are Law Society council member for child care law Christina Blacklaws, who will lead the children law panel; Stuart Barlow, ...
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Lawyers 'optimistic' over legal services reform
Alternative business structures will bring more work for high street and other firms as the big brands educate the public that they need to make a will, solicitors have suggested in a recent report. However, practitioners also indicated that the cost of regulation is driving some ...
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‘One-stop cyber shop’ for legal services
A ‘one-stop cyber shop’ for legal services across all 27 EU member states was launched last week amid fears about data protection and the expense of maintaining the site.
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New Law Society president unveils conveyancing scheme
The new president of the Law Society has pledged to promote the profession’s role at the ‘heart of society and commerce’, as she revealed plans for a new scheme to support conveyancers. The conveyancing quality scheme, to be launched by the Law Society this autumn, will ...
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Employment tribunal claims soar
Employment tribunal claims soared by 56% in 2009/10 compared to the previous year, according to Tribunal Service statistics. Actions brought by multiple claimants, mostly unions, rocketed by nearly 90%. These included 10,600 claims brought on behalf of airline pilots in relation to the working time ...
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Halliwells break-upconfirmed as former rivals move in
The break-up of north-west law firm Halliwells was completed yesterday with confirmation that its Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield operations have been acquired by three former rivals. City firm Barlow Lyde & Gilbert (BLG) has scooped up Halliwells’ Manchester insurance practice, taking on 17 partners, plus other ...
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Councils merge two legal teams
Two London councils are to merge their legal teams under a joint head of legal services in a bid to cut external legal spend and staff costs. In a six-month trial, Merton’s head of legal Helen White will also become head of legal at Richmond ...
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CPS damages claim saga rumbles on
A judge has with a ‘heavy heart’ allowed the Crown Prosecution Service to continue defending an employment tribunal claim that has already been in court four times and cost the taxpayer more than £1m, including a record £600,000 in damages for racial discrimination. Former CPS prosecutor ...
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Chancery Lane launches new studies on paralegals and solicitor-advocates
The Law Society has commissioned former Ministry of Justice senior civil servant Nick Smedley (pictured) to produce research papers on paralegal qualifications and on improved support for solicitor-advocates. Smedley’s first paper will be a ‘scoping study’ into whether the Law Society should develop or endorse qualifications ...
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AWS extends awards deadline
The deadline for entering the Association of Women Solicitors awards 2010 has been extended by one week to Friday 23 July. The seven categories are: best woman solicitor retaining and developing legal talent; and best woman solicitor managing a large practice, medium-sized practice, small practice, legal aid practice, probate ...
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Boom times for serial litigants
Employment law is a nice little earner for serial litigants like Mr X, who has brought 91 cases to the employment tribunal since 1996. He and others like him blackmail employers. They cheat taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of pounds and clog up the courts. And nobody in authority, ...
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Annual immigration cap could harm legal sector
Government plans to impose a permanent annual cap on non-EU nationals entering the UK labour market could have a ‘significant detrimental impact’ on the legal sector, the Law Society has warned. Home secretary Theresa May has announced a consultation process ahead of a permanent annual cap ...
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Europe's most prominent guardians of human rights
Step into the entrance foyer of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg and you could be in a sports centre in Milton Keynes on a quiet morning. The glass, tubular steel and spiral staircases lack gravitas. There are no gowned briefs or clients in evidence. The place ...
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Law centre to take on child asylum appeals
A law centre is to improve access to justice for asylum-seeking children by taking on and funding appeals referred to it by legal aid firms, it emerged last week. Hammersmith and Fulham Law Centre (HFLC) has invited publicly funded firms to submit cases to it that ...
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Bulgaria opens up to foreign law firms
Bulgaria is to amend its anti-competitive Bar Act and allow international law firms to practise within its borders following a two-year campaign by City firms and the Law Society. Bulgaria’s Bar Act, which will now be amended, prohibits international law firms from practising under their own ...
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Rule of law ‘in disarray’ in Zimbabwe
Extra-judicial killings, kidnappings and torture continue unabated in Zimbabwe despite a 22-month power-sharing agreement between the country’s two main political parties, a delegation of legal bodies reported this week. The delegation's report, A Place in the Sun, looks at the state of the rule of ...
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Acoustic 'youth dispersal' devices ‘a danger to children's hearing'
Acoustic ‘youth dispersal’ devices are a danger to children’s hearing and should be banned immediately, the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe ruled unanimously last week. The devices, designed to be audible only to people under the age of 20, are installed in public places such as shopping centres, ...