Last 3 months headlines – Page 1650
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Junior lawyers on community mission to Borneo
The Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) has teamed up with volunteering charity Raleigh International to develop a unique annual public service project in Borneo. Junior lawyers from the UK will work with a local community in the south-east Asian island of Borneo on infrastructure projects to build ...
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The right to choose your own lawyer
The European Court of Justice this week decided a case relating to the free choice of lawyers (Case C-199/08, Eschig). The Court overrode a condition in an insurance policy and decided that a European directive granting free choice of lawyers had to be respected regardless of the insurance condition.
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Diary of a redundancy (part two)
The train home is weirdly empty: no grim-faced commuters. Home is weird, too. You’ve never before witnessed its weekday rhythm: the sounds of playtime from the primary school, the clink of bottles over the whine of the milkman’s electric float. You’re normally still in London this early in the day, ...
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Best value tendering pilot deferred
Tendering for all criminal contracts, including the best value tendering (BVT) pilot process, has been deferred for at least two months, the Legal Services Commission announced today. Tendering for the 2010 criminal contracts was due to begin in October, but the LSC has put the date ...
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Separated from parliament, will the Supreme Court become too powerful?
Creating the Supreme Court ‘as a result of what appears to have been a last-minute decision over a glass of whisky’ seems to verge on the frivolous, Lord Neuberger tells me. ‘You muck around with a constitution like the British Constitution at your peril, because ...
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Local government - London Authorities Mutual Limited
The phoenix is a splendid mythical bird that is serious about regeneration. Near the end of its 500-1,000 year lifecycle it burns itself to ashes, only to emerge anew to live through another lifetime.
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Helping the community is good for law's hard-nosed image
Corporate social responsibility has come of age. Everybody is embracing it, from magic circle firms to sole practitioners, all trying to be considerate neighbours, treat others with respect, reduce fuel consumption, recycle waste materials, participate in the community and adopt other responsible behaviours.
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The true cost of social mobility
Your feature about social mobility underplayed what can be the biggest barrier for applicants to the law – money (see [2009] Gazette, 20 August, 8).
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Beware CMCs bearing gifts
I read with interest the letter from Denise Kitchener, chief executive of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, headed ‘Cutting out the middle man’ (see [2009] Gazette, 20 August, 5). I found myself smiling wryly at the comment of the Ministry of Justice regulator who – presumably with a straight ...
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Going it alone
Christina Blacklaws describes the potential feelings of isolation some lawyers working from home in virtual law firms can experience (see [2009] Gazette, 20 August, 5).
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Court jesters offer light relief
Is there something about the courtroom – the gravitas of the surroundings, the adversarial ambience – that makes people’s minds (professionals included) turn to mush? Having stumbled across some of the amusing courtroom quotes collated by Mary Louise Gilman, editor of the National Shorthand Reporter, Obiter is beginning to wonder. ...
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£26k for a bunch of flowers
Pretty, isn’t it? Well, at £26,000, it ought to be. This floral design, which would not look out of place on a pair of Laura Ashley curtains, is the official emblem of the Supreme Court, and incorporates an English rose, some Welsh leek leaves, a Scots thistle and a northern ...
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Memory lane
Looking back on some rather dated advertisements, while we've also managed to pull out a letter that amusingly describes a client's interpretation of lawyer interactions. Law Society’s Gazette, September 1959 ...
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Breaking the mould
As one might imagine, City lawyers are not the only ones to enjoy a few perks when times are good. So does the City’s troupe of journalists. When cash is plentiful, so are the freebies, and magic circle firm Allen & Overy is (or was) one of the most generous. ...
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CFS panel cull deferred pending talks
The Law Society has secured a two-week stay of execution for sole practitioners in a ‘first round’ of negotiations over the decision to axe 3,600 practitioners from the conveyancing panel of the newly merged Britannia and Co-operative Financial Services (CFS). Sole practitioners will remain on the ...
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SRA is striving to boost efficiency as demands significantly increase
The increase in the practising certificate (PC) fee has come at a difficult time, as the recession continues to bite in most sectors of the legal profession. Members of the profession have the right to expect that the SRA will do its utmost to avoid placing an additional financial burden ...
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New ideas to squeeze more value from private practice
Long gone are the days when going in-house was likened to putting on a comfy pair of slippers. General counsel now enjoy high status as custodians of the corporate purse strings. They want more for their money and are getting it. Fixed fees and rigorous panel ...
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Freezing assets of ‘terrorists’ – how fair is the UN sanctions committee?
The attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 brought many changes to the legal landscape, of which three facets are perhaps most familiar to legal practitioners: criminal trials of suspected terrorists; control orders imposed on those suspected of terrorist activity; and the extradition of terrorist suspects to other countries, ...
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Swiss legal professional privilege plea for foreign in-house lawyers
Europe’s largest association of corporate general counsel has asked the Swiss government to bolster legal professional privilege for foreign in-house lawyers working in the country. The call comes after the Swiss government put forward a draft bill to grant resident corporate counsel a right to legal professional privilege – a ...