Last 3 months headlines – Page 1467
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FSA raises protection for client accounts
Client money held in solicitors’ bank accounts has been given greater protection in the event of a bank collapse, after the Financial Services Authority unveiled rule changes today. Implementing a European Commission directive, the City regulator upped the cap on the compensation available for deposits that ...
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MPs warned they will be ‘overloaded’ due to legal aid cuts
A group campaigning against the government’s legal aid cuts has sent Christmas cards to MPs warning them that they could be overwhelmed with constituents’ problems. Justice for All, a coalition of legal and advice agencies, politicians, trade unions, community groups and members of the public, said ...
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Why are lawyers so unpopular with the public?
I thought he was going to hit me, if he didn't fall over first. He hated effing lawyers, he said. He was a bulge-eyed roaring drunk and had got it into his befuddled brain that I was a lawyer, rather than someone who wrote about the ...
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Defamation
Defamatory statements – Defences – Fair comment – Libel Spiller & Anor v Joseph & Ors: SC (Lords Phillips (president), Rodger, Walker, Brown, Sir John Dyson): 1 December 2010 The ...
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Civil procedure
Coroners – Inquests – National security – Terrorism R (on the application of Secretary of State for the Home Department) v HM Coroner for Inner West London: DC (Lords Justices Maurice Kay, Stanley Burnton): 30 November 2010 ...
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Magnum opus
It’s Christmas (or Winterval if you’re politically correct) so it must be competition time. We are indebted to Gazettereader offer partner Averys Wine Merchants for the generous donation of six magnums (magna?) of the finest Chateau La Rose Gadis 2004 Bordeaux Rouge. One will duly wet the whistle of the ...
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Hugging the attorney
Back in the days when I was articled (how long ago did that word become obsolete?), barristers did not mix socially with solicitors, writes James Morton. Taking their instructing solicitor out to dinner was known as ‘hugging the attorney’ and was, I believe, a disciplinary offence. Certainly, they did not ...
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Grudge judge
As number two in the judicial pecking order, second only to the lord chief justice himself, one might expect Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury to be above petty grudges. But it turns out that, in common with most advocates, he finds it difficult to accept when a ...
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Razing money
Obiter promised one, and only one, Movember pic, and here it is. These handsomely moustachioed chaps from south-west firm Burges Salmon raised an impressive £2,000 for men’s health charities by growing their facial hair, of which they are all clearly immensely proud. Nice ...
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Star trekkers
Pictured are David Green, solicitor at the Longton office of Stevens, and his wife Andrea Muckley, solicitor at TRP in Birmingham, having just completed a three-and-a-half day trek along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru in aid of charity RNIB. Given that the 26-mile trip includes altitudes of ...
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Code of Conduct – conflicts of interest and conveyancing
Among the changes the Solicitors Regulation Authority is intending to make as part of its move to outcomes-focused regulation (OFR) in October 2011 is the removal of the detailed provisions, under rule 3 of the current Code of Conduct, on conflicts of interest, relating to when a solicitor may or ...
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WikiLeaks take us into a legal – and moral – maze
Cablegate has some way to run. It is far too soon to know the final consequences for all those involved, though few may find that the affair ends well for them. We may, however, be able to glimpse the wider implications of this episode. We could, after all, be in ...
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Lost generation?
I write as a parent who happens to be a solicitor. Hurrah for Mr Justice Coleridge (tinyurl.com/32xekfd). It is so refreshing to hear a judge talking openly about what is a serious and untackled malaise. He has demonstrated quite clearly the detrimental effects of raising children as your ‘best friends’ ...
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Roll on retirement
My 9 December Gazette arrived late because of inclement weather. Just as well. Last week, I was in a really bad mood. Now, I’m just cross.
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CQS needs teeth
Paul Marsh is quite right, in talking about the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS), when he says ‘it is crucial that good firms of whatever size are able to compete on quality and not just on price with substandard firms’. We are a Lexcel-accredited firm with 25 ...
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Confrontation not consultation
In her latest column, the Law Society president urges us all to stand up and fight for access to justice against the threatened legal aid cuts. She writes: ‘This really is a process of genuine consultation; it is not a done deal and we still have all to play for’. ...
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The issue of what constitutes a legal adviser
When is a legal adviser not a legal adviser? Based on section 147 of the Equality Act 2010, it appears to be when he is a legal adviser. Confused? Many have been. At this time of year one’s thoughts often turn to compromise agreements. Yet as ...
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BME solicitors must act now to survive upheaval in legal services
by Nwabueze Nwokolo, chair of the Black Solicitors Network and Law Society Council member, Minority Ethnic Concerns It is with great pleasure that I take on the role of chair of the Black Solicitors Network. I have campaigned all my professional life for the elimination of ...
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Why it is going to be even harder for LLPs to borrow new money
‘All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned,’ wrote Karl Marx, alluding to capitalism’s awesome capacity for creative destruction. In this at least he was right, as evidenced perhaps by the demise of Ashton Morton Slack, a century-old mainstay of the Sheffield legal scene.