Last 3 months headlines – Page 1548

  • News

    Latest developments in business education for lawyers

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    Training for lawyers can be a lot like buying legal services – a distress purchase made at the point of no return, says Deborah Walker, business development manager at Manchester Metropolitan University’s (MMU) School of Law.

  • News

    Right up our street

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    There was something of an outcry not so long ago when proposals were announced to relax the rules on product placement on television. It will be the end of sensible plot lines, critics alleged, with gratuitous references to commercial products cropping up all over the place. Well, whatever happens when ...

  • News

    Lamb to the Slaughter

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    It is pleasing to report that friendly competition still exists between those on either side of the solicitor-barrister divide. Last week Obiter heard Robert Graham-Campbell, chief executive at top commercial litigation set Maitland, and a very brave man indeed, make a daring remark to an assembled crowd of 60 or ...

  • News

    Planet error

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    Now for the latest, and possibly last, instalment in what we can only term the Obiter dicta series of amusing dictation errors. Annest Jones, litigation solicitor at City Legal, tells us of some errors typed by secretaries which we think are all rather more engaging than what was originally intended. ...

  • News

    Open the custody suite doors, Hal

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    In the current political climate you don’t have to travel far to find an expert opinion on the rehabilitation of offenders. But rather than ask the nearest taxi driver, the Ministry of Justice has turned to computer science to work out when we should throw away the key. According to ...

  • News

    Memory lane

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    Law Society’s Gazette, March 1940 Excerpt from a speech given by Randle Fynes Wilson Holme, B.A., president of the Law Society, who was chairing a ...

  • News

    Competence issue

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    The comments of the Law Society on the Institute of Legal Executives consultation on associate prosecutor advocacy training come a little late (see [2010] Gazette, 18 March, 1). Your report omits to say that this issue was debated and settled by parliament when the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act passed ...

  • News

    Paying fair for practising fees

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    I write in my capacity as president of the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors in response to Charles Plant’s article ‘A fairer structure’ (see [2010] Gazette, 11 March, 8).

  • News

    Solicitor-advocates must overcome prejudice to become wholy accepted

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    by Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, immediate past chairman of the Solicitors Association of Higher Court Advocates. The views expressed are personal and not those of the SAHCA In 2009 higher court advocacy reached its 15th year – and it is perhaps unsurprising that it endured a sustained attack ...

  • News

    What can be done to help law students against the limited number of jobs?

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    Beth Wanono is Law Society council member representing LPC students and trainees and is writing in that capacity How do we tackle the bottleneck? Do students need more ...

  • News

    MoJ set to tighten up on legal aid and squeeze out smaller players

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    It was no coincidence that the Ministry of Justice chose to release details of the highest-paid legal aid barristers and firms at the same time as it unveiled its latest plans for a tendering system for legal aid work. The unsubtle message is, ‘we’re tightening ...

  • News

    Acquisition of Care UK and the creation of Eurostar International

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    Plan from the Pru: City firm Herbert Smith advised Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Cazenove and HSBC on financing UK insurer Prudential’s $35.5bn (£23.4bn) acquisition of the Asian operations of insurer AIG, advised by US firm Debevoise & Plimpton. Magic circle firm Slaughter and ...

  • News

    Partner exodus forecast once alternative business structures available

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    Experienced City law firm ­partners will quit their firms in droves to set up a new wave of boutique practices once alternative business structures (ABSs) are available, leading market commentators are ­predicting. Professor Richard Susskind (pictured) and Maitland Chambers chief executive Robert Graham-Campbell forecast that the ...

  • News

    Top legal process outsourcing providers plan ‘aggressive expansion’

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    Two of the top three legal process outsourcing (LPO) providers are plotting aggressive growth in anticipation of a flood of mandates in 2010, the Gazette has learned. The news comes shortly after the third LPO provider in the trio, CPA Global, announced similarly ambitious plans ...

  • News

    VHCC panel for criminal work to be suspended

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    The Legal Services Commission has announced that the very high cost cases (VHCC) panel for criminal work will be ­suspended when the current contracts expire in July, because of a lack of time to run a new tendering exercise. From July 2010 the LSC said it ...

  • News

    City firms in the dark

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    Founding firms in the Legal Sector Alliance including Allen & Overy and Lovells have pledged to take part in the symbolic ‘Earth Hour’ lights-out event on Saturday 27 March at 8.30pm, in which they will switch off their lights for an hour. ...

  • News

    Lord Neuberger calls for single appeals tribunal

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    The master of the rolls has recommended that a single body should be responsible for hearing appeals brought by lawyers or legal businesses found to have breached licensing and ownership rules. Lord Neuberger said it is essential that common standards are applicable across the profession.

  • News

    Environmental search data breakthrough for conveyancing solicitors

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    Conveyancing solicitors could get free access to more environmental search information from local authorities following an Information Tribunal ruling. In a case concerning East Riding of Yorkshire, the tribunal ruled that the local authority should have allowed a representative from a private search company to inspect ...

  • News

    O2 slams letters sent out by lawyers to alleged internet file-sharers

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    Mobile phone company O2 has waded into the row over controversial letters sent by lawyers to alleged internet file-sharers. O2 broadband customers are among the thousands who have received letters from London firm ACS Law, which acts on behalf of DigiProtect, an anti-piracy firm, and ...

  • News

    Tories rule out ban on PI referral fees

    2010-03-25T00:00:00Z

    A Conservative government would not enforce a blanket ban on personal injury referral fees, shadow justice minister Henry Bellingham told the Gazette this week. The remarks appear to signal a softening in Tory policy, and go against one of Lord Justice Jackson’s key proposals in his ...