Last 3 months headlines – Page 1303
-
News
Defence firms should make the move to digital working
by Peter Lewis, head of the CJS Efficiency Programme The government has committed to providing a simpler, swifter and more transparent criminal justice service and, as part of this, the core agencies of the criminal justice system (CJS) have committed to ‘going digital’.
-
News
Why should solicitors pick up the tab?
The article by District Judge Richard Chapman was surely four days too late for the April Fool joke that I assume it was.
-
News
Obligations first
Articles entitled ‘Some "rights" have limitations appear when a system of law espouses a doctrine of rights that has no, or at best an attenuated, concept of obligations as the correlative of rights. As Immanuel Kant explained during the Enlightenment and Onora O’Neill outlined more recently in her Reith Lectures ...
-
News
The right address
I was interested by Ian Kinloch’s letter in which he refers to a German solicitor being addressed as Herr Doktor. I hold the Institute of Linguists diploma in French and liaised with a monolingual French notaire on behalf of a client buying a holiday home in the Dordogne. Leaving aside ...
-
News
Greed is not good
‘New York has nothing to fear from alternative business structures’, says the Law Society president. As a solicitor who retired about 10 years ago, I wish to express my astonishment at that statement. Mr Wotton has a short memory concerning the so-called liberalisation of the ...
-
News
Titanic undertaking
Astute readers may already have noticed that tomorrow [Saturday 14th April] is the 100th anniversary of the RMS Titanic striking an iceberg.
-
News
Dress pass
Even in these casual days, turning up in court inappropriately attired remains the stuff of solicitors’ nightmares. Kevan Lines, of Abertillery firm Lewis & Lines, recalls a ghastly incident a couple of years ago (before the firm gave up publicly funded criminal work). ‘I was phoned by a legal adviser ...
-
News
Moot point
Leeds University Law School’s team narrowly beat City University Law School in the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting’s annual mooting competition. In the finals, held at the Law Society, the mooting problem focused on a Court of Appeal case concerning a possible murder charge over a decision to withhold treatment ...
-
News
ET or not ET? That is the question
When an employment lawyer dies it must be tempting for those left behind to draw upon the career of the deceased when considering an inscription for the tombstone. Some may aspire to the simple phrase: ‘He lived as he died; scandalous, vexatious and with no reasonable prospect of success.’ For ...
-
News
Gap in the market
We are in a period of profound change. Last month saw the culmination of the ambitions of legislators to liberalise the legal market with the approval of the first SRA-licensed alternative business structures. Their introduction heralds a major restructuring of the way in which legal services will be delivered in ...
-
News
Winner dinner
Chancery Lane commercial partner Hiscox is inviting you to enter its Law Society exclusive prize draw to win a private dinner party. The winning Society member and five guests will be treated to a four-course meal prepared by an expert chef in the winner’s home. To enter you need ...
-
News
Sleeping beauties
Reading the report of the magistrate who was alleged to have gone to sleep during a mitigation reminds me of the late Wilfrid Fordham. He used to say: ‘A speech in mitigation gets no better the longer it goes on’. In his later years, Wilfrid was a great one for ...
-
News
Tracking scheme aims to cut family delays
A new initiative to tackle delays in the family courts has got under way. The pilot scheme to track all public law cases issued from 2 April 2012 follows the launch of a case management system monitoring the progress of cases, recording all case management decisions, adjournments, the use of ...
-
News
Border agency 'cynicism' behind appeal losses
‘Bad and cynical’ decision making lies behind the UK Border Agency’s (UKBA) continued record of losing half of all appeals against orders to remove immigrants and failed asylum seekers, it was alleged today. Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants legal policy director Hina Majid ...
-
News
Law Society slams minimum salary consultation
Scrapping the minimum salary could force some trainee solicitors to claim housing benefits and take on second jobs, creating an image that will neither benefit the profession nor promote social mobility within it, the Law Society has warned. In its response to a Solicitors Regulation ...
-
News
The human cost of legal aid cuts
Next Tuesday the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill will be back in the Commons for MPs to consider amendments made by peers. It is likely that many of the amendments will be reversed and the bill, which removes huge areas of law from the scope of legal ...
-
News
Drinking and casual sexism still institutional in top firms, LSB research claims
The legal profession’s culture of ‘casual sexism’ and high levels of drinking has led women and ethnic minority solicitors to adopt special strategies to overcome institutional discrimination in law firms, researchers funded by the Legal Services Board told a conference today. Some Asian women solicitors choose ...