Last 3 months headlines – Page 1393
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Romeo on trial
Romeo found himself in the dock this week as a group of lawyers joined the Shakespeare Schools Festival to perform The Trial of Romeo at Gray’s Inn. The performance began with young actors performing Romeo and Juliet up to the crucial moment of Tybalt’s death, ...
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Out of Africa
Queuing in the driving rain at the bus stop outside the Royal Courts of Justice last week, Obiter chanced across a lawyer chum just returned from Johannesburg, where, he said, it had been 20C and sunny every day. The conversation inevitably led to the potential ...
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J-Lo or J-law
Obiter must confess to occasional musings over what might have been if only things had turned out slightly differently. Be honest – who doesn’t?
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Gold Bailey
Radio 4 began a new series, Voices from the Old Bailey, highlighting interesting 18th century cases from the historic London court this week. The first of the four-part series focused on ordinary Londoners caught up in riots, including a 1780 backlash against legislation giving greater ...
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Character study
One of the first offices I worked in as a young lawyer were rented on a floor of a Dickensian building which, for the purposes, may be deemed to be within a two-mile radius of the law courts.
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News focus: Lord Justice Leveson's large remit
There has been a close focus in the press on the main actors in the judicial inquiry that David Cameron announced into the phone-hacking scandal on 20 July. The abilities of Lord Justice Leveson (pictured) and the panel of experts who will advise him do of course matter. As Joshua ...
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EU would have to be reinvented if it ends
These are dark days for the EU. Many have noted that its ability to deal with the eurozone crisis is posing an existential test. If it fails, the whole structure could come tumbling down. Let us suppose that this might happen. Other than my being out of a job, what ...
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Is News International ‘fit and proper’ to own law firms?
There seems an extraordinary official silence as to the potential relationship of the scandal of News International with the forthcoming implementation of alternative business structures. News International, if it passed the fitness-to-own test, and indeed until the scandal it surely would have, could own a considerable number of legal firms. ...
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Hurting tenants
The recent Benchmarks article by Richard Pates exposes the fact that the Court of Appeal has driven a coach and horses through the tenant deposit scheme inserted into the Housing Act 2004, which protects tenants against the widespread abuse by landlords of the rental deposit system. ...
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Lay conspiracy
While solicitors spend millions of hours getting to grips with the new Solicitors Regulation Authority code (only four years after the last major revision) in the runup to October, they might care to look up the composition of the members of the SRA and the Legal Services Board. ...
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Better odds
Martin Comport explains that ‘sometimes, cynical me thinks that [legal aid] certificates are given on the basis of "let’s say the chances are 50/50 or less but then they will be much greater when the opposition know that we have a certificate"’.
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Forming a queue
Am I first in the queue to respond to Martin Comport’s letter ‘Not in my name’ to say that I feel he is: (i) Out of touch with those who need legal representation; (ii) Some sort of right-wing reactionary; and ...
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Norway’s ministry of justice had the right policies in place
The details that have emerged from Norway of the events on the island of Utoeya are horrific, and would lead any society to ask what could have prevented events unfolding as they did.
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Onus on UK to investigate Iraq torture
by Phil Shiner, a solicitor at Public Interest Lawyers The invasion of Iraq by the UK and US in March 2003 led to hundreds of thousands of egregious human rights violations by the UK: unlawful deaths, acts of torture or arbitrary detention without charge. The UK ...
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Leveson a strong choice to lead phone-hacking inquiry
What’s so striking about the judicial inquiry into phone hacking is how high-powered it all is. I had initially thought that the lord chief justice would recommend a retired judge for appointment as its chairman. But Lord Judge recognised that the task was simply too important for someone nearing the ...
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Not very Appy
No doubt when the accountants at the LSC read about the I Jail App, they will quickly calculate that it is more cost-effective to give the accused an iPhone, than to supply a defence lawyer. Alan England, self-employed locum, ...
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ICO looks into private detective report obtained by Djanogly
The Information Commissioner’s Office has confirmed that it is looking into a complaint concerning information obtained by private detectives instructed by justice minister Jonathan Djanogly. However, a spokeswoman for the ICO said press reports that the minister had been reported to the commission, or that he ...
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Linklaters publishes its diversity data
Magic circle firm Linklaters has published anonymised diversity statistics revealing the gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and educational background of its UK lawyers. The statistics come ahead of the Legal Services Board’s requirement that all firms publish this type of research from next year. ...
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LSB to review ‘reserved activities’
The Legal Services Board has outlined plans to modernise regulation and create a consistent approach to ‘reserved’ activities. In a discussion paper launched today, the LSB says the list of legal services that only a qualified lawyer can undertake, including conveyancing, litigation and advocacy, has grown ...
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Bar Council to examine Bribery Act action on referral fees
Bar Council leaders have condemned the Legal Services Board for refusing to ban referral fees, and will look into whether the fees break the terms of the Bribery Act. Writing in an update to members, chair Peter Lodder and vice-chair Michael Todd said they were ‘surprised ...