Last 3 months headlines – Page 1187
-
News
System crying out for reform
Forgive me for raising a matter affecting the families of murder victims, when we are engrossed in our own future, but it is important. A suspected murderer had gone on the run, hiding away for many weeks. I had represented him before and had no doubt ...
-
News
Contributory negligence: employee or lawful visitor?
In Sharp v Top Flight Scaffolding Ltd, the claimant was so badly injured in the accident that at trial he was a protected party represented by his brother as litigation friend. Mr Sharp was a 43-year-old scaffolder employed by the defendant, who fell while attempting ...
-
News
Lawyers are the same – though different – wherever you go
I have travelled a good deal for more than 15 years, either on behalf of the Law Society or for my current employer, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE). Since this has been paid either wholly or now in small part by solicitors, it is time ...
-
News
A blow to EL claims
Last week, an attempt to oppose changes to health and safety law that will make it harder for employees to bring claims against their employers, failed in the House of Lords. At the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers’ annual conference this month, APIL past-president David Bott ...
-
News
Rights-forfeit advice
Employees are to be allowed to accept shares in their employer’s business in exchange for surrendering employment rights, following a House of Lords agreement last week. The Lords, which had rejected the plan on two separate occasions, accepted government concessions, including the need for employees to ...
-
News
Costs precedent
Judgment in the conjoined appeals of Gavin Flatman v Gill Germany and Richard Weddall v Barchester Health Care Ltd was handed down last month [2013] EWCA Civ 278. The decision was an important one in view of the new funding and costs regime that exists following the implementation of the ...
-
News
High Court throws out JR on ‘easyCouncil’
A London council is to proceed with the outsourcing of regulatory services such as building control and land charges after fighting off a High Court challenge. The court today dismissed an application for a judicial review against the London borough of Barnet’s programme to outsource a wide range of services ...
-
News
‘Mayhem’ threat as Wales votes against QASA
Lawyers could cause ‘mayhem’ to the criminal justice system in protest over the government’s legal aid reforms, the leader of the Wales and Chester circuit has warned after barristers in Wales voted unanimously to boycott the controversial quality assessment scheme. Speaking to the Gazette today, Gregory ...
-
News
Solicitors must engage with PCT consultation
by Desmond Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society The current consultation on changes to criminal legal aid - the proposed introduction of price-competitive tendering - casts a dark shadow over the future of hundreds of solicitors and their firms.
-
News
SRA sleuths uncover email excuses
Obiter is no stranger to unwanted emails. Every day we get a barrage of useless notifications, updates and newsletters (not counting the Gazette’s daily update, of course). But you might have thought that a practising law firm would open emails with ‘SRA Compliance’ in the sender ...
-
News
Facts speak louder than words
Always alert to linguistic trends, Obiter has noted a new euphemism being applied to what Private Eye used to call ‘Ugandan discussions’. It originates in a letter by Lord Justice Leveson dismissing any suggestion of impropriety resulting from the relationship after his inquiry into the press between the inquiry’s second ...
-
News
Model of a modern secretary general
You may wonder what the secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) does all day. This is a proper question, since solicitors contribute to my pay. So here goes, with all events taken from last week. If you want to see how I am ...
-
News
What a way to make a living
Estella Brown of Middlesex firm Goodwins family law has obviously been working 9 to 5 on the potential for appropriate legal mergers. How about the Law Offices of Kevin J. Dolley LLC in St Louis, US, with Jackson Parton Solicitors from London, to make Dolley Parton? Any more marriages made ...
-
News
The Tyco-Eversheds deal – from whiteboard to renewal
News broke late last week that Tyco is extending the 2006 deal it signed with Eversheds, whereby the firm provides the company’s legal needs for a fixed price – in return for sole-provider status for huge swathes of Tyco’s external legal needs.
-
News
Saatchi promises safeguards in negligence immunity bill
Advertising magnate Lord Saatchi will today outline how he intends to protect doctors from negligence claims if they innovate in the treatment of cancer patients. In a speech to the Royal Society of Medicine, Saatchi will explain how doctors can be encouraged to innovate without being ...
-
News
Tiny misunderstanding
Just when you think the legal profession has finally got its collective head around this internet thingie, there comes a knock-back. A colleague called the Gazette newsdesk the other day to grumble about alleged bias in the selection of readers’ comments for printing on our weekly Feedback pages. ...
-
News
Grayling’s prison clampdown is a smokescreen, says association chair
Reforms to prison privileges announced by the justice secretary today have been condemned as ‘cheap shots’ to ‘whip up prejudice’ and create a ‘smokescreen’ to detract from legal aid cuts. The chair of the Association of Prison Lawyers, Andrew Sperling, questioned why Chris Grayling had decided ...
-
News
Lord Judge and eternal vigilance
When you are lord chief justice a spot of self-deprecation tends to go unnoticed. After all, you’ve reached the top of the tree, have an unimpeachable track record and everybody hangs on your every word. Nobody’s going to take seriously your claim that you have made the most stupid observation ...