Last 3 months headlines – Page 1233
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Town and village greens - commercial property
Are town and village greens cherished community spaces? Or malicious and vexatious pre-emptors of vital development? This is the first of two articles on town and village greens: this piece considers case law; the next will consider proposals for reform. At common law, a green is equivalent to a special ...
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The Brazilian legal market
Commercial firms seeking new frontiers might want to board the next plane to Brazil, if they have not already done so. The country is growing rapidly and is now the sixth largest economy in the world, with a GDP per head bigger than India or China. Brazil has a population ...
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Call time on court shortcomings
I am writing to ask if your other readers feel the same about the centralisation of the money claims court process.
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QASA and the fear of review
There are those who have complained about the new Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates for its lack of ‘bite’. Practically speaking, an advocate would have to be not only incompetent, but doggedly determined to remain so, in order to lose rights of audience under the ...
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Connect2Law chief vows to create ‘leading’ UK brand
Legal referral and support network Connect2Law has announced the heavyweight appointment of David Jabbari to the new role of chief executive. Jabbari (pictured) will join the executive board and become a partner at Pannone, which established Connect2Law in 2001. Jabbari was until recently chief operating ...
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SRA approves compliance officers
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has confirmed the first set of approved compliance officers for legal practice, and finance and administration. About 5,000, just over 40% of the total, have been notified. Notifications of approval will continue to be sent to firms until 31 December. The new compliance officers will take ...
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‘Oppressive’ employment litigants costs call
‘Oppressive’ litigants in employment tribunal cases should have punitive costs awarded against them, the Law Society has said in its response to a review of tribunal rules. The Society also criticised the review’s proposed scrapping of the £20,000 cap on awards and called for provisions to ...
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Interpreters ‘gag’ probe
MPs have sought an explanation from the Ministry of Justice over allegations that magistrates and court staff were instructed not to participate fully in an inquiry into the operation of a private sector contract to provide court interpreters. In written evidence to the Commons Justice ...
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App lost in translation
I started reading the article in this week’s Gazette entitled ‘Release an app’, but abandoned it when I hit the following sentence: ‘Further critical success factors include: determining and engaging key internal and external stakeholders to deliver a user-focused product, and developing appropriate analytics and key performance indicators to measure ...
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Costly battle of finding advice
As a solicitor with 16 years’ experience in special educational needs law, I must respond to Lord McNally’s assumption that the education lawyer who had had a client for 11 years was possibly not giving the right advice.
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Partners live up to work ethic
James Caan wishes to get rid of those he refers to as ‘under-performing partners’. His comments betray his lack of understanding of how the partnership structure works. In most of the firms I deal with, the partners are likely to be among the hardest workers ...
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Egypt judges boycott constitution vote
Judges in Egypt have refused to oversee a vote on the country’s new draft constitution announced by president Mohamed Morsi. The Judges’ Club’s decision follows a confrontation between Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court and Islamist supporters of Morsi. The court said it was suspending its work after ...
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Tax microscope may fall on lawyers
The likely reputational damage attendant on its alleged tax avoidance dawned on Starbucks last week. On Saturday, the coffee chain announced it is reviewing its tax approach to Britain, ahead of a scathing report from the Public Accounts Committee accusing household-name multinationals of ‘immoral’ use of various schemes to minimise ...
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Investing in young talent is the way forward in law
by Mark Hoban, employment minister I do not need to convince you just how varied, interesting and rewarding a career in the legal sector can be – but I do not think enough young people realise this. I want to change that.
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Rocket man's leap into cupcake land
Obiter felt distinctly over-dressed last week when the Gazette’s crew arrived suited and booted for the official launch of new-kid-on-the-block Rocket Lawyer UK. After setting off from dear old Chancery Lane, we felt as if we had travelled through the space-time vortex as we entered ...
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Hello, Sydney!
And so to Australia, where a planned lecture on ‘privacy’ by Lord Justice Leveson will take place on 7 December. Unkind commentators have implied that Sir Brian’s expenses-paid trip, coming as it does straight after the publication of his 2,000-page report, constitutes either an admission of defeat or some sort ...
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Seat at international table at risk over human rights
It seems a long time since human rights were regarded as a noble aspiration. Since then, they have become something of a political football. Where will it be kicked next? On prisoners’ votes, the government’s goal is clearly the long grass. Remember David Cameron promising that ‘prisoners are not getting ...
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Voluntary sector should be able to charge - LSB
Not-for-profit groups should be allowed to charge for provision of legal services, the Legal Services Board has said. The super-regulator wants the Solicitors Regulation Authority urgently to remove the current ban on charging. In a response to the consultation on regulation of ...