Last 3 months headlines – Page 1593
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Removing legal aid for non-residents is a blow to human rights
by Phil Shiner, a human rights lawyer and head of Public Interest Lawyers Baha Mousa died in a filthy latrine in Basra on 15 September 2003. He had been tortured to death by British soldiers and had suffered 93 different injuries. He and his hotel colleagues ...
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Losing faith in the solicitors profession?
Is the profession losing faith – both in itself and the future? We ask because the Gazette’s letters and web pages have metamorphosed into agony columns. The underlying refrain is that solicitors are no longer respected as professionals; no longer due the degree of deference and consideration that reflects a ...
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Candid camera
Lawyers dread the Christmas party for many reasons: being cornered by the office bore/letch, getting so drunk you might tell the senior partner what you really think, or just the thought of hitting tomorrow’s billing target with a thumping headache.
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Worse for wear
The launch of a new book, Employment Law Practice: Strategies for Success, has got the somewhat rumpled Obiter a little worried. Along with rather earnest chapters on ‘mastering non-contentious law’ and the like, the book has a more entertaining section on what to wear. There is ‘nothing worse’, the four ...
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Legally Blonde competition winner
Obiter is mighty impressed with readers’ knowledge of showbiz trivia. Last week’s competition asked the killer question, ‘Big-hearted’ Arthur Askey’s pre-war comedy partner went on to play a barrister in a much-loved ITV legal comedy drama. Who was he, and who was the ...
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Hair today
OK, the month of Movember may have officially passed now that December is here, but we could not resist this one. Staff at north-west firm EAD have been growing moustaches in aid of the charity event to raise awareness of men’s health issues. And as is often the case it ...
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Memory lane
Law Society’s Gazette, December 1949 Notes of the monthWe regret to record the death, on October 30, of Mr G. E. Hawkins, who we believe was the oldest ...
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Data page for November 2009
The data page is the financial rates and data complied for the Law Society Gazette by MoneyFacts Group, the UK's largest supplier of savings and mortgage data. DownloadsDownload the data page for November 2009 below ...
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Chinese float, Islamic financing, and Brawn GP Formula 1 team
Chinese float: Magic circle firm Clifford Chance advised on two Hong Kong Stock Exchange flotations that raised $6.1bn (£3.7bn) in total. The firm advised China Minsheng Bank on its $3.9bn (£2.37bn) flotation and China Longyuan Power on its $2.2bn (£1.34bn) listing.
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Assembly probes spending by mayor’s economic development agency
The cost of work done by law firms advising the Mayor of London’s economic development agency is to be scrutinised by the London Assembly, the Gazette has learned. The news emerged after Boris Johnson answered questions on the amount that the London Development Agency (LDA) paid ...
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High-profile City firms reduce carbon footprint
More than a third of Legal Sector Alliance (LSA) firms have reduced their carbon footprint over the last year, according to a report by the climate change action group. Some 35% of the 138 firms in the alliance, including a raft of high-profile City firms, have ...
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Government legal aid spending cuts called into question
Figures showing a fall in the cost of criminal defence work have called into question the government’s drive to introduce more spending cuts. Statistics obtained from the Legal Services Commission by More4 News showed that the amount spent nationally on criminal defence services has fallen over ...
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Drop in suspicious activity reports by solicitors
The number of suspicious activity reports (SARs) made by solicitors has fallen by more than a quarter over the last year, according to figures published by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). SOCA’s third annual report showed that solicitors filed 4,772 SARs between October 2008 and ...
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Lawyers in UK and Ireland hit hardest by problems in property market
Only Ireland has suffered more job losses within its legal profession than the UK, the director general of the Law Society of Ireland said last week. Ken Murphy told delegates at a Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) meeting in Brussels that ...
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Tory housing minister reignites HIP debate
Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps’ recent confirmation that he would scrap home information packs (HIPs) has re-ignited the debate over what should replace them. Shapps said last week that removal of the controversial sellers’ packs would be his first task if the Conservatives win the next ...
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Banks could be first to face US-style ‘opt-out’ class actions
Banks and other financial institutions could be the first to face US-style ‘opt-out’ class actions, the chancellor confirmed this week. During the Financial Services Bill’s second reading in parliament, Alistair Darling said that though he does not want to see ‘the widespread development’ of class actions, ...
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Vulnerable defendants not helped in understanding court proceedings
Defendants with learning disabilities are routinely deprived of help with understanding criminal court proceedings, a report from the Prison Reform Trust has revealed. The report, published this week, found there was no systematic procedure for identifying adults with learning disabilities. Some defendants did not know why ...
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Woolf calls for arbitration overhaul as he launches new guidance
International arbitration has ‘lost its way’, the former lord chief justice Lord Woolf (pictured) told the Gazette this week, as he launched a set of guidelines which will build mediation into the arbitration process. Woolf co-chaired an international commission for the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution ...
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Quarter of firms expected to walk away from legal aid in next five years
More than a quarter of firms expect to walk away from legal aid work in the next five years, a report slamming the Legal Services Commission’s poor administration has revealed. The report by public spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) showed that one in six ...
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Guidance notes and rule changes
I am interested in the recent exchange of letters between Messrs Hopper and Treverton-Jones and Antony Townsend, the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s chief executive, about changes to the guidance notes to rule 9 of the Code of Conduct made on 13 November 2009.