Last 3 months headlines – Page 1687
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Pastoral care: support is out there in tough economic times
The impact of the recession on the legal market is unprecedented, but there is plenty of support available for those affected. On Monday, Jasmine Walker (not her real name) was talking to the partners in her conveyancing practice about ways to bring in new business. On ...
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Time out for Mansfield
After 42 years righting wrongs on behalf of clients such as the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, barrister Michael Mansfield says he is taking a break from court work. Don’t expect him to disappear from the headlines. The head of chambers at criminal and ...
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Regulator probes 10 firms over misleading debt claims
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is investigating 10 firms for accepting business from claims management companies that have misled consumers about the prospects of getting debts written off. The regulator renewed an earlier warning about doing business with such introducers, following what it described as a ‘rash ...
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Sweet charity
There’s a buzz in the air at bee’s knees hive of activity Hampshire law firm Coffin Mew. Obiter won’t try your patience any further with puns around Apis mellifera. Suffice it to say the firm has just signed up for another three years’ sponsorship of national charity Honeypot. It’s a ...
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Magnificent seven
After reading Richard Biggs’ claim to be the fastest lawyer in the land (see [2009] Gazette, 17 April, 31), David Jeffery, an associate at Guernsey firm Collas Day, got in touch to claim the title. Jeffery tells us that he accepted instructions from a client on 5 February, following a ...
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Passing fancy
There is more to rugby, Obiter has learned, than Neanderthal foreheads, cauliflower ears and a taste for communal bathing. The game for hooligans played by gentlemen also has a charitable side. Three rugby-playing solicitors are to help raise £100,000 for leukaemia research in memory of lifelong friend and all-round sportsman, ...
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Memory lane
The Law Society's first national advertising campaign as well as a committee discussing legal measures to prevent unlawful seizure of aircraft. The Law Society’s Gazette, 26 April 1999 ...
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Criminal law: witness anonymity, automatic deportation
In R v Davis [2008] UKHL 36, the House of Lords held that the use of anonymous witnesses whose evidence was critical to the conviction, rendered a trial unfair without a statutory scheme being in force.
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Probate law: equitable election, proprietary estoppel
In Frears v Frears [2008] EWCA Civ 1320, the Court of Appeal had to consider the equitable doctrine of election.
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Employment
Health and safety at work - Casual workers - Compensation - Contracts of employment R (on the application of Health and Safety Executive) v Shah Nawaz Pola: CA (Crim Div) (Lord Justice Moses, Judge Hedley, Judge Russell, Recorder of ...
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Hopes for tech and media bonanza unfounded, research shows
Hopes that a boom in technology, media and telecoms (TMT) activity could offset the slump in financial services and property may be unrealistic, new research has suggested. A survey published last week predicts a downturn in the TMT sector because of funding problems faced by businesses. ...
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Commission keeps it simple on legal aid contracts
The Legal Services Commission will allow only one model of consortium in the civil bid round for 2010 legal aid contracts, it has announced. The civil contracts tender process will not begin before September, but the LSC said it wanted to provide clarification and explanation of ...
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Bar thinktank proposes contingent legal aid fund
A contingent legal aid fund (CLAF) could ensure access to justice and help solve the legal aid crisis, according to a report published today by a Bar Council thinktank. The Policy Advisory Group, led by former bar chairman Guy Mansfield QC, proposes a self-funding, not-for-profit scheme ...
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LSB consumer panel members will do it for love, not money
‘The common thread that underpins the Legal Services Board’s work is the consumer,’ the LSB declared in its business plan. With this in mind, it is presently recruiting a chair and members for its consumer panel, which the board says will have ‘considerable scope to advise and influence the LSB ...
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Judge removed following OJC investigation
A district judge has been removed from office in the first judicial sacking since 1983. The Office for Judicial Complaints said yesterday that Margaret Short, who was appointed to the South East District Bench in 1993, has been removed following an investigation into ‘inappropriate behaviour’. A ...
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Impact of budget belt-tightening may not last
I’ll bet some of the law’s City types were at home last night tapping away frantically on a calculator, and I’ll bet that 50% figured in most, if not all, of their equations. Yes, the taxman will be pocketing more of their take home pay – and all in the ...
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Someone remind the MoJ what the Legal Services Act is for
This week’s news that price comparison site Moneysupermarket.com is getting into personal injury leads, or referrals as lawyers might see them, is more interesting than it seems in terms of regulation and the new landscape of what a legal business actually is.
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Solicitor-advocates and quality – the issues
The 1990 Courts and Legal Services Act ended the bar’s monopoly on rights of audience in the higher courts. Since then there have been periodic murmurings of discontent from the bar and judiciary about the quality of solicitor higher court advocates. Many observers have seen this as nothing more than ...
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Fight for your rights to better service
The shrinking number of legal IT vendors and the use of Microsoft by those which remain is a good thing, not a bad thing...
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Thomas to chair tribunals council
Jack Straw, the lord chancellor and secretary of state, has appointed former solicitor Richard Thomas as the new chairman of the Administrative Justice & Tribunals Council (AJTC). Thomas is currently the information commissioner and deputy chairman of the Consumers Association. He has been appointed for four ...