Last 3 months headlines – Page 1460
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Prosecute solicitors who lie to PII insurers, says Law Society
The Solicitors Regulation Authority should prosecute every solicitor who lies on their professional indemnity insurance (PII) application form, the chief executive of the Law Society said yesterday. Speaking at an Association of British Insurers (ABI) seminar on solicitors’ PII, Desmond Hudson said that the profession 'needs ...
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Intellectual property
Infringement - Trade marks – Irreparable harm – Balance of injustice Cowshed Products Ltd v (1) Island Origins Ltd (2) Patrick O’Connor (3) Bianca O’Connor: Chd (Judge Birss QC): 17 December 2010 ...
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Scouting – social value and balancing risk
The Scout Association v Barnes [2010] EWCA Civ 1476 (Lord Justice Ward, Lady Justice Smith and Lord Justice Jackson) When 13 years of age, the claimant suffered injuries valued at £7,000 in an accident ...
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How can trustees decide which investment vehicle is best?
The dramatic volatility of stock markets over the past decade has shaken investors’ belief in the traditional approaches to investment, and trustees are in danger of exposing their beneficiaries to undue risk by failing to review their portfolios. This article looks at two major investment vehicles which facilitate diversification – ...
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How more devolved powers in Wales could affect the law
Wales goes to the polls on 3 March to vote on whether the National Assembly’s law-making powers in the 20 devolved areas should be extended. It has already started building a body of law with a distinctive Welsh flavour, despite the tortuous process put in place in 2006 that requires ...
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Whitehall faces conflict with lawyers over plans to cut immigration
Immigration was not high on the political agenda at the millennium. Indeed, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, the new immigration and work permit rules that emerged in the UK were seen by many businesses and their advisers as a spirited attempt to get ...
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Pre-nup, I love you
The firm that brought feuding spouses the antithesis of the perfect Christmas present – the ‘divorce voucher’ – has now come up with a new gift idea in time for Valentine’s Day. In a timely coincidence, as the Law Commission published its consultation on whether ...
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Lawyer who took up literary reins
Somehow lawyers don’t seem to make as successful novelists as doctors (or even vets or ex-jockeys), writes James Morton. Certainly, there have been some notable exceptions; in the 19th century, Harrison Ainsworth, Anthony Hope and R S Surtees, although they are more or less forgotten ...
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A step back in time
After celebrating the achievements of 95-year-old solicitor Leslie Black last week, Obiter was delighted to hear from another ‘old timer’ – Geoffrey Rutter, partner at City firm Collyer Bristow – with a glimpse of what it was like to be a newly qualified solicitor in 1960. ...
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Litigants in person set to rise
The Law Society has warned that the courts could be ‘thronged by countless individuals unable to have a lawyer, like a scene from Pickwick Papers’, if the government presses ahead with legal aid reforms without conducting research on the likely effect on the number of litigants in person. ...
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LSC pledge on matter starts for legal aid work
The Legal Services Commission has begun allocating new matter starts for family legal aid work to firms on the basis of the amount they received last year, it said last week. Since the High Court ruling that quashed the outcome of the LSC’s family tender in ...
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ABSs ‘won’t drive top firms south’
The Law Society of Scotland has voiced confidence that the nation’s biggest cross-border firms will remain domiciled in Edinburgh, even though they are expected to enjoy less freedom to restructure and raise investment than their English counterparts after the introduction of alternative business structures (ABSs).
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Aspiring judges to get support
The Law Society and Judicial Appointments Commission [JAC] will today launch a joint plan to support solicitors who want to become judges, after an analysis of the appointment of solicitors as judges over the past 10 years.
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Time not called on hourly bills
The hourly billing model for law firms is still ‘largely intact’ and is too profitable for firms to be incentivised to move away from it, according to a leading professional services consultant. Maureen Broderick said her research indicated professional services firms and consultancies that operate in ...
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Police practice of kettling protesters needs review
Most readers will never have been on a demonstration. Many may well feel that ‘kettling’ by the police of demonstrators is a perfectly reasonable tactic in the face of recent violence at education demonstrations. But, as we undoubtedly face more protests in what may well be a rather unhappy new ...
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Warming the bench for solicitors
by Frances Kirkham, a senior circuit judge and JAC commissioner Today, the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) and the Law Society have announced a joint plan to support more solicitors who wish to join the judiciary.
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Wales and Scotland consider legal implications of devolution
Iraq overshadowed what went before, of course, but devolution is accepted as one of the successes of Tony Blair’s tenure as premier. Certainly, as a former member of the Scottish press, the editor of this magazine finds it hard to believe that it is only a ...
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A tax defence
David Kenyon-Vaughan expresses concern about a VAT concession . However he muddles avoidance and evasion. HMRC allows those whose turnover amounts to a sum small enough to come within the scheme to reclaim a flat-rate percentage of VAT without having to count their individual spending for VAT purposes. The new ...
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Security overhaul
I write in response to Richard Williams’s letter highlighting the ‘over-the-top’ attitude of court security staff. While I and many of my colleagues are well known at our local courts, there is a great inconsistency in the security measures undertaken. Some security guards let us through without a search, ...