Last 3 months headlines – Page 1231
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How to avoid a court crash
All practitioners in family law will recognise the scene: it is 9.45am and already the small waiting room in the county court is heaving with barristers, solicitors and parties to the proceedings. Often the morning session blurs into the afternoon and ‘justice’ is not swift. What ...
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Low legal aid fee ‘scandalous’
Karen Todner is right to be concerned for the future of publicly funded criminal defence firms. My firm recently represented a 13-year-old boy arrested on suspicion of murder. A qualified solicitor spent nine hours and 42 minutes on a Friday evening and Saturday advising him, with ...
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The need to protect privacy
Serious public interest issues have been played out in the court and the media over the past few months. I write, of course, about the royal buttocks of Prince Harry, the regal breasts of his sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge and the extra-marital activities of the former England football manager ...
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Commercial property
The report of E.ON UK plc v Gilesports Limited [2012] EWHC 2172 bears reading because there are a number of interesting points, but in this article I will focus on only one – how long is a reasonable time to consent to an assignment?
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London care pilot to make £1m saving
A pilot to speed up care cases has more than halved the time taken to resolve matters and is on track to save the public purse £1m a year. In April, three London boroughs – Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham – began ...
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US plea to curb third-party funding
A US lobby group has called for immediate government regulation of third-party litigation funding. The increasing influence of third-party funders has caused controversy on both sides of the Atlantic. Both the US, and England and Wales, currently have voluntary regulation, but there have been repeated calls ...
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Divorce ruling branded ‘cheat’s charter’
Lawyers have branded as a ‘cheat’s charter’ a Court of Appeal landmark ruling that an oil tycoon need not hand over to his wife £17.5m in assets held by his companies. In Petrodel Resources Ltd & Ors v Prest & Ors [2012] EWCA Civ 1395 the ...
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Goldsmith warning on confidentiality
Lawyer-client confidentiality is under authoritarian attack on several fronts, threatening the future of the profession, the secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe has warned.
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Aftermath of panel reviews
It is said that there are more questions on the application form to be a member of a lender’s conveyancing panel than there are to join MI5. Whether or not that is true, it is clear that if you want to do a good job for your homebuying clients, and ...
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Mediators go for ‘gold’ in Hong Kong
Demand for mediation services in Hong Kong – which adopted Woolf-style obligatory mediation in 2010 – has prompted the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) to create a panel of 22 mediators in the region. Mark Side, partner and head of dispute resolution at Tanner ...
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How To: stop domestic violence
Beyond the headlines that we see all too often in the papers, domestic violence is a hidden epidemic – statistics tell us that one in four women and one in six men will experience domestic violence in their adult lives. Some readers will already be very familiar with these statistics. ...
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SRA ‘confident’ over PC renewals
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has expressed ‘confidence’ that this year’s practising certificate renewal season, which began today, will pass more smoothly than last year’s troubled process. 2011 was the first year that the SRA attempted online renewal and payments, through its mySRA portal. Well-publicised difficulties with ...
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Human endeavour subject to the principles of commerce
Soon there will be fruit machines in the lobby of every courtroom in England and Wales. Three cherries wins you a paralegal; three pineapples a senior partner. Pull the handle and take your chance.
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Civil litigators could consider advocacy
by Rachel Rothwell, editor of Litigation Funding magazine I recently attended a conference held by the Law Society’s Civil Justice Section – Litigators: survive and thrive. One key message was aimed at personal injury lawyers who – with the Jackson timebomb ticking and set for detonation ...
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Falconer lords it over mediation
An apologetic Lord Falconer of Thoroton turned up nearly an hour late last week to give a keynote speech at City firm Norton Rose. He explained that he had been trapped in Television Centre after a broadcast interview was delayed. Fortunately for the former lord ...
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Sign here, Mr President
The Law Society’s librarians are used to turning up treasures. But the signature of Herbert Hoover, 31st president of the United States, tucked away in an autograph book came as a surprise. The fascinating little book, signed by Hoover at the White House in 1930, was created by solicitor Gilbert ...
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Tour de Force seals Paris win
No, it’s not Bradley Wiggins. It’s a chap too shy to give his name at Baker & McKenzie, which beat five other law firms to be named Fastest Firm as part of Breast Cancer Care’s Tour de Law cycling challenge. The firm covered the 500km from London to Paris on ...
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Lyons Davidson looks to capitalise on ABS status
Lyons Davidson has been granted alternative business structure (ABS) status, which the national firm hopes will help it capitalise on changes in the UK legal market. Managing director Mark Savill told the Gazette that the move is key to its strategic relationship with insurers in preparation ...
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Dragon is bang on the money
When I was a newspaper City hack I always considered private equity to be the reductive apotheosis of late-capitalism (sounds pretentious, but bear with me). I still do. Private equity firms don’t provide any service; they are pretty much invisible; and their owners do their ...