Last 3 months headlines – Page 1181
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Paper weight
What goes around, comes around, and now it’s time to eschew online marketing and go back to using dead trees. Or at any rate that’s what those techie chaps at mylawyer.co.uk have just done. They inserted a printed flyer inside the Sunday Times and awaited a response. ...
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International firms call off merger
International firms Speechly Bircham and Withers today announced that they had dropped merger plans following almost two months of talks. The firms said in March they had entered ‘preliminary discussions’ over creating a joint practice with more than 600 lawyers. But in ...
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Gest appearance
While the nation focused on his appearance (one newspaper even describing him as a Welsh David Gest), it seems the legal world’s Apprentice hopeful may just have a chance of winning the contest. Young Alex Mills (pictured), founder of the Dynamo Legal brand, impressed Lord Sugar with his design for ...
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Memory lane
The Law Society’s Gazette, May 1913Minutes of the Special General Meeting held in the Society’s Hall Mr Ford asked the President whether, in view of the growth of officialdom in relation to the legal business of the country, the Council had considered, or would consider, the ...
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Extradition: removing the automatic right to appeal will lead to injustice
by Rebecca Niblock, solicitor at Kingsley Napley LLP and co-author of Extradition law: A Practitioner’s Guide Contrary to popular belief, things can move quickly in extradition. Two contrasting proposals for reform, one passing unnoticed last week, the other lying dormant, could lead to significant changes for ...
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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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Woolwich, crime and mental health
Murder of a soldier in south-east London – a horrid event with some further nastiness in its wider repercussions. Woolwich isn’t too far from my home, and as when Damilola Taylor was murdered (close enough to our old flat to have the home secretary interviewed ...
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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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Employment
Admission – Liability – Withdrawal Berg v Blackburn Rovers Football Club & Athletic plc: Chancery Division, Manchester District Registry: 29 April 2013 The Chancery Division dismissed an application by ...
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Russia’s legal sector
The market economy in the Russian Federation has developed exponentially since the Soviet Union (USSR), its legal predecessor, dissolved in 1991. Oil and gas contribute up to 25% of GDP and a massive 80% of exports according to UKTI, but Russia is diversifying its economy. With low unemployment, a population ...
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Legal reforms: call for consistency
I listened with particular interest to justice secretary Chris Grayling’s interview on the Today programme about the new reforms of judicial review, which are aimed at making sure only genuine cases receive a hearing. The interviewer John Humphrys quite rightly compared the new changes to a ‘no win, no fee’ ...
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Malaysian abuses
As a native-born Malaysian living in the UK, I was ashamed and distressed to learn about the reported treatment of defendants and assaults on lawyers trying to assist them after the April 2012 protest incident. In the 21st century this human rights abuse by a UN member state must not ...
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Dog-eat-dog profession
Am I alone in thinking, after qualifying 40 years ago, that what was then a profession which justified and duly received public respect has degenerated into a dog-eat-dog environment? We already know that larger firms and conveyancing factories sell their souls to estate agents, developers and ...
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Divorce advice
Many years ago at a local meeting of either Relate or the former Solicitors Family Law Association (now Resolution), I proposed to an eminent judge that government health warnings appeared on divorce petitions. The learned judge basically concurred. Many problems arise or are exacerbated by the ...
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Civil strife
With the proposed strike action in respect of criminal legal aid reforms seemingly an agreed and positive form of protest, it saddens me that similar steps were not taken in advance of the cuts made to civil legal aid.
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Family arbitration: award show
I have reviewed with interest Lucinda Ferguson’s letter ‘"Final and binding" awards’. Lucinda refers to my ‘Family law arbitration wins’ article as ‘misleading in one respect, namely that "awards" made under the Scheme are "final and binding"’. I never stated that an award in arbitration usurps ...
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Job centred
This week I was talking to a solicitor friend in another practice whose senior partner retired. On his departure, my friend’s colleague said: ‘On qualifying as a solicitor I joined a profession; on retiring as a solicitor I am leaving a job.’ Says it all doesn’t it? ...
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Learning more about contracted public defence services
In the summer of 1998, I visited the US to look at contracted public defender schemes. This was triggered by the prediction that they would be the ultimate destination of the Legal Aid Board’s franchising initiative. Public defender horror stories, particularly in the south of the US, are easy to ...
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Tendering: grim precedent
So the Ministry of Justice is having to dip into its – that is to say ‘our’ – pocket to bail out a cack-handed scheme for interpreter provision wished upon the criminal justice system supposedly to save money. Who would have thought it? Well, anyone ...
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Law Society Yacht Club
The Law Society Yacht Club has been inactive for a number of years. However, some members are hoping to revive it and to that end we are holding a general meeting on 5 June at El Vinos, 47 Fleet Street, London. The meeting starts at 6.45pm. If any members require ...