Last 3 months headlines – Page 1456
-
News
Supreme Court widens definition of violent abuse
Solicitors have welcomed a Supreme Court ruling that domestic violence extends beyond physical contact to include other forms of violent conduct.
-
News
Coalition is moving the Bribery Act issue into the 'too difficult' tray
Monty Raphael, special counsel to Peters & Peters and author of Blackstone’s Guide to the Bribery Act 2010, describes the government’s decision to delay implementation of the act as ‘puzzling’.
-
News
Council cuts reprieve for legal advice centres
The High Court has quashed a decision by administrative body London Councils to cut £10m from its £26.4m grant scheme for voluntary organisations across the capital, including legal advice centres. The decision would have left more than 200 groups, including the Mary Ward Legal Advice ...
-
News
Citizens’ advice bureaux in Birmingham to close
Five citizens’ advice bureaux in Birmingham are expected to close their doors next week, unless they can raise £50,000 per month to continue, after the city council withdrew all of its £600,000-a-year funding. Without new money, the City Centre, Northfield, Tyseley, Handsworth and Kingstanding services ...
-
News
Appeal court backs CFA costs agreement
Solicitors must be allowed to shoulder the risk of adverse costs orders on behalf of their clients to ensure proper access to justice, the Court of Appeal has ruled, in a judgment welcomed by the Law Society. Giving judgment in Sibthorpe and Morris v London Borough ...
-
News
The proposed legal aid cuts are both irresponsible and inequitable
The recent rally by Justice for All brought to the heart of Westminster the concerns of a coalition of organisations about the Conservative-led government’s proposed cuts to the legal aid budget.
-
News
MoJ drops bill to modernise law of damages
The government dropped proposals to modernise the law of damages last month. The Ministry of Justice has decided not to proceed with the Civil Law Reform Bill published in December 2009. The bill had put forward several amendments to the law on damages, as recommended ...
-
News
Law firm not liable to loan losses, says appeal court
A law firm that gave negligent advice to a bank before the bank lost £28m in loans advanced to two local authorities does not have to reimburse those losses, the Court of Appeal ruled last week. Overturning a High Court decision, the appeal court ruled in ...
-
News
Fears grow over EU contract law 'confusion'
Magic circle firm Allen & Overy warned that a pan-European contract law could create ‘confusion and uncertainty’ for business, as the deadline for submissions to a European Commission consultation on the issue passed this week. The firm also criticised a lack of business representation on the ...
-
News
LoveFilm acquisition, steel demerger, fencing sponsorship and shoe sale
In the picture: City firm Hogan Lovells advised internet retailer Amazon on acquiring £200m worth of shares in film rental company LoveFilm, giving it a majority stake. City firm Stephenson Harwood advised LoveFilm. ...
-
News
Taking advantage of a media circus
When a high-profile television presenter makes an age-discrimination claim against the BBC you can be sure there’ll be a frenzy of media attention. That’s exactly what happened in the case of Miriam O’Reilly, one of the former hosts of the TV show, Countryfile. O’Reilly lost her ...
-
News
Supreme Court issues guidance on courtroom twitter use
The Supreme Court has today given the ‘green light’ to allow people to ‘tweet’ from inside the courtroom. It has issued guidance on the use of live text-based communication by legal teams, journalists and members of the public of what is going on in court. ...
-
News
Conveyancers pressured into tax avoidance
Conveyancing solicitors are being pressured to become involved in stamp duty land tax (SDLT) avoidance schemes that cost the public purse around £35m, the Gazette has learned. To protect solicitors and help them challenge requests from clients or third parties to become involved in such schemes, ...
-
News
Are solicitors right to worry about publication of complaints?
Plans by the new Legal Services Ombudsman to publish details of complaints against law firms seem to be ruffling a few feathers in the profession. But while the Law Society has warned against the proposals on the basis that statistics show they would disadvantage certain sections of the profession, consumer ...
-
News
Debt advice service to close
The Financial Inclusion Fund’s (FIF) free national debt advice service is set to close after the government axed its £25m-a-year funding. Last month, the financial secretary to the Treasury, Mark Hoban, confirmed that funding for the free face-to-face advice service, which has operated since 2005, will ...
-
News
ABS: retrograde step?
May I add to the ruminations of Peter Jones concerning alternative business structures? Some 47 years in private practice has engendered within me but one confidently held opinion, which is that the law is vastly more complex than it ever was, and becomes more so by ...
-
News
ABS: retrograde step?
May I add to the ruminations of Peter Jones concerning alternative business structures? Some 47 years in private practice has engendered within me but one confidently held opinion, which is that the law is vastly more complex than it ever was, and becomes more so by ...
-
News
Changing perceptions on tackling negligence
Another day, another insult, but are we so apathetic that we sigh and say ‘oh well’ when Mike Penning MP throws 'ambulance chasing insults' at us The landscape is changing, yet many lawyers I speak to do not appear to fully realise the potential impact ...
-
News
Unbalancing the scales of justice
I admit to a certain amount of grim amusement at the howls of protest from the profession at the proposals in respect of legal aid and conditional free agreements (I have clients who fund their cases under both regimes).
-
News
SRA makes training appointments in advance of review
Slaughter and May human resources and training chief Louise Meikle has been appointed as one of five external members of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s education and training committee, which is to conduct a fundamental review of training. Meikle is responsible for the recruitment, development and retention ...