Last 3 months headlines – Page 1497
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Best dressed
It could be time to dust off the gladrags this autumn. A group of 60 College of Law students have been busy organising a ‘full length and fabulous’ event to take place at the luxurious Waldorf Hilton Hotel in London on 2 October, in aid of Breakthrough Breast Cancer. As ...
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For the record
For those following the gripping saga of Redruth solicitor J P Leaning and his quest for blanket permission from Ken Clarke to take a handheld recording device into any court – an update. Leaning has informed Obiter that he has still to receive a reply from the minister, who seems ...
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The spy who sued me
In this age of the long lens, BBC executives and MI5 heads cannot be too careful about what documents they leave sticking out of their briefcases. But it turns out that they are not the only ones who need to exercise ultra-caution when it comes to sensitive documents. In its ...
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Employment
Gross misconduct – Law firms – Unfair dismissal Wilson Devonald Ltd v S Suckling: EAT (Judge Serota QC, D Evans CBE, P Gammon MBE): 3 August 2010 The appellant employer ...
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Rallying cry
It’s amazing to what lengths some solicitors will go to escape from the office. Manchester lawyers Chris Adams and Sean Daly, otherwise known as team ‘Freewheeling Palm Trees’, today set off on a 3,000-mile round trip to southern Italy in a 20-year-old Merc. The pair, who are being sponsored by ...
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Blue language
Gazette wrists are still smarting from the firm slap administered by solicitor Mrs K A Jordan, a partner at Leeds firm Blacks, in relation to a recent news item. The story, about legal executives and will-writers potentially being given new probate rights by ...
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Dishing it out in court
When home secretary Theresa May recently indicated that anti-social behaviour orders could soon be deemed anti-social by the new government, Obiter put out a request to the profession for first-hand experience of unusual asbos. We received an intriguing response from a prosecutor in the north of England, revealing a fascinating, ...
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Civil procedure
Corporation tax – Costs – Group relief Revenue & Customs Commissioners v Marks & Spencer Plc: ChD (Mr Justice Warren): 27 August 2010 The court was required to determine outstanding ...
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Freedom of Information Act and exemptions to the rule
There is no single FoI exemption which covers such reports, and often they will be disclosable in their entirety because they will contain no specific information about surveillance operations. However, where this is the case, or the request is for wider information about surveillance activity, the section 31 exemption (law ...
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Solicitors queue up to sue LSC
Pressure is mounting on the Legal Services Commission over its handling of the tender for civil legal aid contracts, as it faces a growing number of judicial review challenges to the process, and talks with the Law Society broke down.
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Army cuts could hit support for Afghan operations
The defence spending and security review will result in cuts of at least 25% in the numbers of lawyers in the Army and Royal Air Force, the Gazette understands. The cuts will include lawyers who advise frontline troops and commanders on compliance with the Geneva ...
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MoJ to review media reporting in family courts
The Ministry of Justice has told the Gazette that it will not commence legislation that would extend the media’s right to report family cases without ‘looking closely’ at the changes, amid pressure from family lawyers. Family lawyers have called on the government not to ...
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Akzo Nobel ruling a ‘missed opportunity’ say lawyers
Lawyers expressed dismay this week at a European Court of Justice ruling that legal professional privilege does not apply to legal advice given by in-house lawyers in EU competition law investigations. Ruling in the Akzo Nobel case, the ECJ said that in-house lawyers were not independent ...
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Solicitor charged with theft
A Lincolnshire solicitor has been charged with stealing over a quarter of a million pounds from her former clients. Jacquelina Laverick, who practised under the name Jacqui Johns, appeared at Grantham Magistrates’ Court last week charged with 11 offences of theft totalling more than £250,000, and ...
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Law firms fear school panel axe
Seventeen law firms signed up to advise local authorities on the Labour government’s lucrative school building project will soon learn whether or not their legal panel is to be scrapped. The Department for Education (DfE)’s £55bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project was abolished ...
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Lord Bingham – lawyers pay tribute
Tributes have been paid to Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the ‘most respected, distinguished and admired judge of our times’, who died at his home in Wales on 11 September, aged 76.
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Mobile phones, bonds and healthcare
End of the line: Magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised mobile phone group Vodafone on selling its $6.6bn (£4.3bn) stake in China Mobile. Freshfields also advised the board of Anglo Irish Bank on its break-up at the behest of the Irish government, ...
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Government cuts must not undermine the constitution
Forget for a moment the row over legal aid tendering – that is nothing compared with what is to come. Judicial review may be an appropriate response to a contracting cock-up, but how do we, as individual solicitors and as a profession, respond to the cuts that are to come?
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Personal injury interest calculation tables
The standard rate of interest on general damages for pain and suffering and loss of amenities in personal injury cases was fixed at 2% a year by the House of Lords in Birkett v Hayes [1982] 1 WLR 816; [1982] 2 All ER 70). This was confirmed as appropriate by ...
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The changing relationship between solicitors and barristers
In the debate about how the legal regulators should amend practising rules to allow solicitors and barristers to operate in the new structures modelled in the Legal Services Act 2007, some predicted that the reforms could alter forever the identity of lawyers and lead to fusion – ending the distinction ...