Last 3 months headlines – Page 1501

  • News

    Firms see boom in high-value litigation

    2010-09-07T00:00:00Z

    A quarter of litigation disputes involve claims of more than £3m, and legal costs exceed £500,000 in 10% of cases, a survey of the heads of litigation at the UK’s top 200 law firms has revealed. The research, commissioned by Harbour Litigation Funding, showed that commercial ...

  • News

    Handling launch of legal directories

    2010-09-07T00:00:00Z

    Today sees the publication of the 2010 Legal 500. Reputations and egos will be bolstered or dented and questions will be raised: ‘Why is such-and-such still ranked above us, when we all know that we are better?’

  • News

    The struggle over the European Law Institute

    2010-09-06T00:00:00Z

    Prepare yourself for a battle of similarly sounding initials. This is a story of how ELIA has been struggling with EUI, and how they have then decided to make common cause to be able to carve out the spoils of the battle between themselves, and so decide who else should ...

  • News

    Barristers offer ‘lifeline’ to criminal solicitors

    2010-09-06T00:00:00Z

    Barristers’ chambers could provide a ‘lifeline’ to small criminal law firms, Bar Council chairman Nick Green QC has told the Gazette. ...

  • News

    LSC extends family contracts

    2010-09-06T00:00:00Z

    The Legal Services Commission has agreed to extend the family legal aid contracts for a month, as the Law Society won an application for an expedited hearing of its judicial review at a hearing last week. At a directions hearing at the High Court on Friday, ...

  • News

    LSC extends family contracts

    2010-09-06T00:00:00Z

    The Legal Services Commission has agreed to extend the family legal aid contracts for a month, as the Law Society won an application for an expedited hearing of its judicial review last week. At a directions hearing at the High Court on Friday, the court granted ...

  • News

    The SRA must amend the Code of Conduct or law firms will close

    2010-09-03T00:00:00Z

    This autumn the media will be replete with stories about the number of small firms of solicitors who have ceased to practise. A recurrent theme will be the lack of competition between those firms who remain, and an absence of choice for the consumer. There are three reasons for my ...

  • News

    SRA steps up ARP enforcement action

    2010-09-03T00:00:00Z

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority has visited 88 firms in the assigned risks pool (ARP) since July, as part of its tougher enforcement strategy to clamp down on ‘financially unstable’ firms in the pool. The regulator announced a new enforcement regime in July designed to address the ...

  • News

    Rules on ABS discussions unlikely to be relaxed

    2010-09-03T00:00:00Z

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority is unlikely to relax its rules on allowing firms to enter into deals with other businesses in advance of the licensing of alternative business structures, a paper prepared by the regulator has indicated. The paper, which will be discussed by the SRA ...

  • News

    Should corporations be bound by human rights treaties?

    2010-09-03T00:00:00Z

    Human rights treaties bind states, not big business. And yet some multinational corporations are virtually states in themselves.

  • News

    Memory lane

    2010-09-02T00:00:00Z

    Law Society’s Gazette, September 1970 Random ramblings

  • News

    No common garden

    2010-09-02T00:00:00Z

    Green-fingered solicitors at Shropshire firm Lanyon Bowdler are celebrating this month after winning the Mike Hough memorial trophy for the best outdoor garden, as well as a gold medal from the Shropshire Horticultural Society. Clients and staff all got stuck in to create the garden, from a plan produced by ...

  • News

    Insolvency

    2010-09-02T00:00:00Z

    Football – CVAs – Creditors’ meetings – Unfair prejudice Portsmouth City Football Club Ltd (in administration) sub nom Revenue & Customs v (1) Portsmouth City Football Club Ltd (in administration) (2) Andrew Andronikou (3) Peter Kubik (4) Michael Kiely ...

  • News

    You be the judge

    2010-09-02T00:00:00Z

    Obiter has always suspected that it must be good fun to be a judge, so an educational game currently featured on the Ministry of Justice website, which invites users to ‘be a judge for a day’, was too much to resist.

  • News

    High flyers

    2010-09-02T00:00:00Z

    Some 70 years after Winston Churchill paid tribute to ‘the few’, an intellectual property lawyer was among those who took to the skies to commemorate the Battle of Britain this month. Alongside Bruce Dickinson (pictured, second right), frontman of legendary heavy metal outfit Iron Maiden, Ilya Kazi (right), partner at ...

  • News

    Employment

    2010-09-02T00:00:00Z

    Discrimination – Contract terms – Equal pay – Women S Brownbill & Ors v St Helens & Knowsley Hospital NHS Trust: EAT (Mrs Justice Cox): 6 August 2010 The appellant ...

  • News

    Earning a crust

    2010-09-02T00:00:00Z

    In these difficult times, it is good to know that the entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well, and indeed that every apparent difficulty is, in fact, an opportunity. As this column has documented, criminal defence solicitors have bemoaned the Court Service’s current policy of banning them from bringing dictation ...

  • News

    Succession

    2010-09-02T00:00:00Z

    Estates – Mutual wills – Validity Angela Marilyn Charles (2) Derek Goddard (3) Anne Mabel Thompson v Jill Deborah Fraser: ChD (Jonathan Gaunt QC): 11 August 2010 The claimants (C) ...

  • News

    Changes to the law of homicide

    2010-09-02T00:00:00Z

    In relation to acts or omissions on or after 4 October 2010, critical changes to the law of homicide are made by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. The issues are dealt with in part 2 chapter 1. The first set of changes deals with diminished ...

  • News

    Consumer challenges to bank charges and loan agreements

    2010-09-02T00:00:00Z

    I have this recurring image of an enormous office populated by eye-shaded clerks sitting at narrow desks, poring through every word, sentence and paragraph of current consumer legislation, looking for some infinitesimal sign of weakness, some feeble link in the chain of rules and regulations.