Last 3 months headlines – Page 1252
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Osborne's employee plan is flawed
by Richard Fox, head of employment law at City firm Kingsley Napley and chair of the Employment Lawyers Association It was a complete surprise to most people when, at the beginning of last week, George Osborne announced to the Conservative party conference, a plan to introduce ...
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Top hat and... wardrobe malfunction
Obiter is more than a little disappointed that a feature in the latest British Vogue titled ‘Law of attraction’ includes few practical answers to the sartorial challenges thrown up by the average lawyer’s diary (too many chunky knits, mainly). However, male colleagues who fear being wrong-footed ...
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Fright night
Obiter last week asked for a fictional/historic character whose estate you’d least like to wind up. At least six readers proposed Henry VIII; ‘look what happened to Thomas Cromwell’. Genghis Khan was another popular choice. Fictional probate clients from hell ranged from Willy Wonka to ...
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Ale and hearty
Forget all those promotional pens and desktop toys, and never mind primetime TV: why not promote your firm’s name through a properly convivial medium? Somerset firm Amicus Law has done that by commissioning its own real ale – Amicus Ale – through the efforts of ...
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Degree of discipline at party conference
Party conferences are difficult things for the majority parliamentary party. You have to rouse the faithful but the course of government is already set. One moment of temptation – by applause or a headline – and some department is stuck with an initiative that went down a storm in ...
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Are DBAs a viable option in personal injury?
As personal injury lawyers prepare to kiss goodbye to recoverability of after-the-event insurance premiums and success fees in conditional fee agreements from next April, so they will be waving hello to the new kid in town, the damages-based agreement. Will DBAs prove to be the hero of the hour, rescuing ...
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Interpreter firm still missing target, official statistics reveal
The company contracted to provide court interpreters has failed to reach its performance target after six months, statistics released today reveal. The overall success rate for jobs completed by Applied Language Solutions between 30 January and 31 August was 89%. The contract’s performance target is ...
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Public procurement
Public contracts – Claimants tendering for development contract from defendant market authority By Development Ltd and others v Covent Garden Market Authority: Queen's Bench Division, Technology and Construction Court: 28 September 2012 ...
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Secret of my success
Such success as I had as a criminal defence lawyer can be attributed to my inspired decision to instruct Wilfrid Fordham. Before then, my principal, Simpson, had relied for criminal cases on John Averill, a small, curly haired man who became increasingly eccentric and involved ...
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Townsend admits light touch for new ABSs
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has made a conscious decision not to place too many conditions on new alternative business structures (ABSs), its leader has revealed. Chief executive Antony Townsend said the terms of the licence had deliberately been kept simple for the 33 entities that have ...
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Legal aid naivety on display
Lord McNally gave his first speech last week on legal aid since taking over the legal aid brief in the reshuffle. Hats off to him for braving the lion’s den that was the Legal Aid Practitioners Group annual conference – something of a baptism of fire. Legal aid practitioners were ...
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Labour starts to move on from extradition errors
The Labour party has struggled with the controversial issue of the extradition arrangements it agreed with the US and other states when in government. When home secretary Theresa May announced that she would block the extradition of ‘Pentagon Hacker’ Gary McKinnon in the Commons, and ...
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Comparison site attacks online document market
Online price comparison website Compare Legal Costs has partnered with East Midlands firm Nelsons to offer fixed-fee online legal documents to businesses and consumers. Nelsons provides more than 200 online documents suitable for personal or business use, covering building work to prenuptial agreements, divorce, motoring, power ...
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‘No question’ of leaving ECHR - Grieve
Attorney general Dominic Grieve (pictured) has categorically stated the government has no intention of withdrawing from the European convention on human rights. Grieve told the House of Commons yesterday there is ‘no question’ of leaving the convention, despite justice secretary Chris Grayling last week hinting that ...
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Pro bono group expands to Wales
The solicitors’ pro bono group LawWorks has been awarded £180,000 of lottery funding to expand its service across Britain and set up LawWorks Cymru in Wales. The charity heard last week that the Big Lottery Fund will provide the funding over the next three years enabling ...
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Extradition decision exposes double standards
by Nasir Hafezi While most of the British public, including the British families of recently extradited US terror suspects, welcomed home secretary Theresa May’s decision to block Gary McKinnon’s extradition to the US, many will also argue that the decision smacks of double standards and politicians ...
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Gladstone Brookes TV ad falls foul of watchdog
The advertising watchdog has ordered a claims management company (CMC) to stop showing a TV advertisement which exaggerated how long a PPI claim would take. Gladstone Brookes, which instructed almost 71,000 clients in the first eight months of 2012, ran the advertisement stating that ‘reclaiming ...
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Hiring and firing - duty solicitor rotas
There is scene near the beginning of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd where the hero has just lost his farm. He goes to the local town for the annual hiring fair when farm workers get taken on in new jobs. Gabriel joins the crowd of unemployed men looking ...
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Naming and shaming child offenders
by Penelope Gibbs, chair of the Standing Committee for Youth Justice and director of Transform Justice The conker murder was a horrific crime. Steven Grisales was murdered in Edmonton after remonstrating with a gang of boys who were throwing conkers at him.