Last 3 months headlines – Page 1592
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Fate of Quinn Insurance hangs in the balance
More than 2,900 law firms and sole practitioners could be left without professional indemnity insurance (PII) on Monday when the Irish High Court decides the fate of Quinn Insurance, the Irish insurance company that was forced into administration last week. Quinn covers around 10% of the solicitors’ PII insurance market. ...
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Legal aid work at 1998 rates
This may make you laugh. I still do legal aid work. Child care. The rates have not gone up since 1998. Travelling and waiting, I am earning for the firm £32.45 per hour. Because I'm on the Children Panel I can charge an extra amount per hour, just under 5p.
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Property solicitors will need to adapt to a rapidly changing market
Property has been anything but ‘as safe as houses’ for solicitors who deal with residential conveyancing since the onset of the credit crunch. Their colleagues in the commercial property sector have encountered equally thin pickings. But, slowly and unevenly, both sectors of the property market are ...
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Local government: standards appraisal – what are the options?
In the acclaimed BBC comedy The Office, David Brent had rather a hard time trying to conduct an appraisal with Keith from accounts, who came across as a less-than-helpful appraisee. However, Standards for England (SFE) appeared to have less trouble with its appraisal of the local government standards framework, for ...
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Real property
Disclosure – Misrepresentation - Mortages – Spouses Jayne Hewett v First Plus Financial Group Plc: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Jacob, Leveson, Mr Justice Briggs): 24 March 2010 ...
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Social security
Accidents – Heart – Industrial injuries benefits – Personal injury Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v James Scullion: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Pill, Etherton, Aikens): 23 March 2010 ...
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Criminal procedure
Causation – Foreseeability – Joint enterprise – Jury directions R v (1) Reece Mendez (2) Seaon Thompson: CA (Crim Div) (Lord Justice Toulson, Mrs Justice Cox DBE, Judge Barker QC (Common Serjeant of London)): 22 March 2010 ...
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Memory lane
Law Society’s Gazette, April 1960 Licensing Days – Edward A. Williams writes about his early days as a ...
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A&O is magic, right kids?
Magic circle firm Allen & Overy is certainly doing well at attracting the graduates. The firm has just scooped not one but two graduate recruitment honours, from newspapers the Times and the Guardian. The Times Graduate Employer of Choice Award named A&O as the legal employer offering the best opportunities ...
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Playing the fool
As if anyone could have failed to notice, what with Radio 4’s ‘Shakespeare is French’ spoof and the Guardian’s story about Labour planning to orchestrate a Brown-Cameron punch-up to boost ratings, it was April Fool’s day last week. Though Obiter must point out that anyone who took the Gazette’s story ...
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Is honesty always the best policy? Sometimes
Politicians may be known for many things, but honesty isn’t normally one of them. So Obiter was intrigued by the disarming veracity of panel members at pro bono group LawWorks’ Question Time-style panel debate on legal aid last week. With Robin Knowles QC, LawWorks trustee, filling the David Dimbleby role, ...
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The next government must take a more measured approach to libel reforms
by Steven Heffer, head of media at Collyer Bristow and solicitor to Lawyers for Media Standards Over the past year, there has been an intensive press campaign pushing for radical reform of English libel Law. Barely a day goes by without another article by a concerned ...
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There are no votes in legal aid
‘The future holds few certainties for legal aid practitioners, whichever party forms the next government.’ Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. That observation, contained in the Gazette of 23 April 1997, eight days before the New Labour dawn, has become a truism. Still, ...
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Which? hunt
Last week Deborah Prince of Which? offered some ‘friendly advice’ (see [2010] Gazette, 1 April, 11). This follows repeated and public criticism from Which? of my firm for legitimately acting for my clients.
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Issues that matter
To respond to all of Andrew Hopper’s and Greg Treverton-Jones’s points about the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s prosecution policy, ‘Ticking all the boxes?’ (see [2010] Gazette, 1 April, 12), would be a major undertaking, but two key issues need addressing.
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Paying peanuts for legal advice
There is a certain irony in the conjunction of the headline on the front page of last week’s Gazette, ‘Consumer call for competence test’ (see [2010] Gazette, 1 April, 1)...
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Politicians in glass houses
It is interesting to see that our brethren north of the border have been involved in a grassroots rebellion against ‘Tesco Law’, (see [2010] Gazette, 1 April, 8).
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Judicial error
Reading the legal update report of Key v Key (see [2010] Gazette, 1 April, 14), I was struck by the judge’s emphasis on the so-called ‘golden rule’, namely that practitioners should arrange for an aged testator, or one who has been seriously ill, to be examined by and reported on ...
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‘The F word’
The Law Society’s insert in the 25 March issue highlighted the issue of fraud in relation to money laundering and mortgages.
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Seeking a wider audience
On 1 March 2007, you kindly printed a letter in which I questioned why it was that membership of the Criminal Litigation Accreditation Scheme (CLAS) and the possession of higher rights of audience was not publicly recognised by the Law Society on the ‘find a solicitor’ section ...