Last 3 months headlines – Page 1715
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'Quotas undermine diversity'
Intense competition between firms eager to demonstrate their diversity credentials and the use of quotas to measure recruitment of black and minority ethnic (BME) staff only serve to undermine equality, Stuart Popham, senior partner at magic circle firm Clifford Chance, has warned. Popham claimed the trend ...
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RICS drops Quinn from PII list
Quinn Insurance, which provides lawyers with professional indemnity insurance (PII), has been removed from the preferred PII list of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the Gazette has learned. RICS, whose preferred insurer list mirrors the lawyers’ preferred insurer pool, removed Quinn after it withdrew ...
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'Shoddy' phone advice for bail defendants
The telephone advice service for people detained by police on less serious offences is giving a ‘shoddy service’ to some defendants arrested in breach of bail terms, a leading criminal lawyer has claimed. Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said practitioners were beginning ...
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Changes in dentistry prompt hike in negligence claims
The decline in NHS dentistry and an increase in cosmetic dental treatment have led to an surge in negligence claims referred to solicitors, practitioners have told the Gazette. Simon Elliman, head of clinical negligence at regional firm Withy King, said the department has seen more enquiries ...
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Starmer sets out CPS brief
Ensuring the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has the public’s full confidence will be top of the newly appointed Director of Public Prosecutions’ (DPP) to-do list, Keir Starmer QC has told the Gazette.
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Alcohol test for care cases
A new rapid call-out service to test for evidence of alcohol abuse by parents might be used to speed up the launch of child care proceedings, its manufacturers claim. Trimega Laboratories says hair samples will be taken within 90 minutes of an initial request. Test results, ...
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Lawyer hits out at Red Cross confidentiality
A leading human rights lawyer has condemned the Red Cross’s confidentiality policy as ‘colluding in the secrecy’ of regimes that torture and breach the rule of law, and called for its charitable status to be questioned.
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Equality under the law: a fairer future?
It is the lot of every solicitor that there will be a specific dinner party question that folk cannot resist asking. That question will be specific to each area of law and will usually be raised over the After Eights as if for the first time ever.
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Criminal law
Aiding and abetting – Dissemination of terrorist publications – Intention – Mitigation – Sentencing guidelines R v (1) Abdul Rahman (2) Bilal Mohammed: CA (Crim Div) (Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Lord Chief Justice, Mr Justice Goldring, Mr Justice Plender): 8 July 2008
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Intellectual property
Pharmaceuticals – European patents – Incentive step – Prior art Conor Medsystems Inc v (1) Angiotech Pharmaceuticals Inc (2) British Columbia University: HL (Lord Hoffmann, Lord Scott of Foscote, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury): 9 July 2008
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Can the new Equality Bill work?
A new Equality Bill will create a ‘step change’ in workplace opportunities by tackling discrimination, ministers insist. But are the proposals workable? It is less than two years since the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations were introduced to protect workers against age discrimination. But age discrimination, along ...
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Damage limitation
New York has moved to protect local media from England’s ‘asphyxiating’ defamation laws The Libel Terrorism Protection Act is the formal ‘short title’ of legislation recently passed in the State of New York. Its purpose, in the words of an accompanying note, is to protect ‘New ...
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Parliament rules supreme
Government’s planned consultation on pleural plaques is not a hasty response to an unwanted judgment The pre-emptive attack by insurers and their solicitors on the government’s planned consultation on pleural plaques is unwarranted and contributes little to the discussion (see [2008] Gazette, 17 July, 4).
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Balancing act
I am writing to respond to last week’s letter from Dawn Chapman, chairman of the Institute of Legal Cashiers and Administrators (ILCA) (see [2008] Gazette, July 17, 9). The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s board received a number of valuable responses to all the consultations. Numerous changes were ...
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Marital advice
I read with interest the article by District Judge Duncan Adam on pre-nuptial agreements (see [2008] Gazette, 17 July, 24). He concludes with the proposition that for a solicitor not to give advice about pre-nups could be negligent.Crossley is a further milestone on the route to ...
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Pre-nup absence
I take to heart the advice of the District Judge that we could be guilty of negligence in failing to advise our clients about pre-nups. However, there is one problem – they have to come to see us pre-nup! This is just what they do not do.
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Fee speech
I note that there is another government drive to make the court self-funding through court fees. When was this principle debated in Parliament? It is of profound significance. Imagine the same principle being applied to the NHS or state education.
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Claims review stuck in first gear
Is that it? The Ministry of Justice took a year to decide the way forward after its claims process consultation – and this week’s retreat from the original proposals suggests that they were either far too ambitious or betrayed worrying ignorance about how personal injury claims work. ...
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Prescribing a responsible future
New professional guidance for doctors clarifies the crucial role of medical expert witnesses in the justice system Tomorrow the General Medical Council (GMC) will produce new guidance for doctors, entitled ‘Acting as an expert witness’. As well as being a source of guidance for doctors, we ...