Last 3 months headlines – Page 1517
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No common garden
Green-fingered solicitors at Shropshire firm Lanyon Bowdler are celebrating this month after winning the Mike Hough memorial trophy for the best outdoor garden, as well as a gold medal from the Shropshire Horticultural Society. Clients and staff all got stuck in to create the garden, from a plan produced by ...
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Insolvency
Football – CVAs – Creditors’ meetings – Unfair prejudice Portsmouth City Football Club Ltd (in administration) sub nom Revenue & Customs v (1) Portsmouth City Football Club Ltd (in administration) (2) Andrew Andronikou (3) Peter Kubik (4) Michael Kiely ...
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You be the judge
Obiter has always suspected that it must be good fun to be a judge, so an educational game currently featured on the Ministry of Justice website, which invites users to ‘be a judge for a day’, was too much to resist.
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High flyers
Some 70 years after Winston Churchill paid tribute to ‘the few’, an intellectual property lawyer was among those who took to the skies to commemorate the Battle of Britain this month. Alongside Bruce Dickinson (pictured, second right), frontman of legendary heavy metal outfit Iron Maiden, Ilya Kazi (right), partner at ...
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Employment
Discrimination – Contract terms – Equal pay – Women S Brownbill & Ors v St Helens & Knowsley Hospital NHS Trust: EAT (Mrs Justice Cox): 6 August 2010 The appellant ...
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Earning a crust
In these difficult times, it is good to know that the entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well, and indeed that every apparent difficulty is, in fact, an opportunity. As this column has documented, criminal defence solicitors have bemoaned the Court Service’s current policy of banning them from bringing dictation ...
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Succession
Estates – Mutual wills – Validity Angela Marilyn Charles (2) Derek Goddard (3) Anne Mabel Thompson v Jill Deborah Fraser: ChD (Jonathan Gaunt QC): 11 August 2010 The claimants (C) ...
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Changes to the law of homicide
In relation to acts or omissions on or after 4 October 2010, critical changes to the law of homicide are made by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The issues are dealt with in part 2 chapter 1. The first set of changes deals with diminished ...
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Consumer challenges to bank charges and loan agreements
I have this recurring image of an enormous office populated by eye-shaded clerks sitting at narrow desks, poring through every word, sentence and paragraph of current consumer legislation, looking for some infinitesimal sign of weakness, some feeble link in the chain of rules and regulations.
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New legal ombudsman Adam Sampson gives his first interview
Adam Sampson is the first to acknowledge that his new job as legal ombudsman is potentially a poisoned chalice. One of the main catalysts of the Legal Services Act (LSA), which brought his organisation into being, was (as he puts it) ‘the woeful record on complaints-handling [of] the Legal Complaints ...
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Why we had to issue formal proceedings over the family legal tender
The days of a ‘quiet August’ are a thing of the past. The change of government has ensured that Whitehall has remained a hive of activity over the summer – and here at the Law Society we have been far busier than anticipated. As you will ...
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Lenders must not take control of the conveyancing market
by James Naish, qualified chartered surveyor and solicitor at Naish Estate Agents & Solicitors in York Panel reshuffles present a real threat to small conveyancing firms. We might consider the longer-term implications by reviewing what has happened in residential surveying.
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Confusion over PII quote
In my experience, sole practitioners who have not yet taken steps to renew their professional indemnity insurance could be somewhat misled by your lead news item of 19 August, ‘Insurance boost for sole practitioners’
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LSC needs to explain allocation of work
In defence of its decisions affecting family practitioners, the Legal Services Commission states that it will commission the same level of help as last year. However, in the low-volume categories, it is clear that the LSC has deliberately reduced the numbers of matter starts nationally, to the detriment of the ...
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Trying to make sense of the legal aid tender
Before In the Loop there was Yes Minister, the latter contrasting with the former in airing only the mildest of profanities. One sprang to mind when considering the family legal aid tender. ‘Minister, if you must do this damn silly thing,’ the mandarin Sir Humphrey Appleby advises the hapless Jim ...
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Comparison website offers free legal expenses insurance
A new website that compares solicitors by price, location and customer ratings has begun offering clients a free legal expenses insurance policy for road traffic accident (RTA) claims, it emerged last week. Legalcompare.com, which launched in August after 18 months of testing by consumer panels, is ...
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Lack of awareness on mental health
In his letter of 8 July, Hugh Barrett of the Legal Services Commission referred to 'procurement area', ‘client access’, ‘proper advice provision’ and ‘client demand’. Regrettably, this shows a lack of awareness of the type of work in which mental health lawyers are involved.
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Ralli pursues group action for harassment against London firm
National firm Ralli is seeking to pursue a group action for harassment against London firm ACS Law in relation to the handling of file-sharing cases. Ralli has called for individuals to contact the firm if they have received what it claims are ‘bullying’ letters from ACS ...
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UK lawyer delegation suffer Colombia rights rebuff
A delegation of UK lawyers which visited Colombia last week to investigate the persecution and murder of human rights lawyers had permission to inspect the country’s overcrowded and violent prisons withdrawn. Delegates from the Law Society, Bar Council and Institute of Legal Executives were part of ...