Last 3 months headlines – Page 1584
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Wish you were here?
What do celebrities Diana Rigg and Judith Chalmers have in common, aside from being two former glamour pusses of the small screen who are now, shall we say, advancing in years? Answer: they have both had the recent pleasure of being photographed with our favourite outspoken personal injury lawyer, Kerry ...
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Linesman wanders offside
Obiter suspected that last week’s Heimlich manoeuvre expert Richard Taylor, who heroically stopped his client from choking during a posh dinner, would not be the only solicitor out there to have saved a client’s life. Paul Inns, partner at Powys firm Hanratty & ...
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Tickled pink
Obiter is somewhat lost for words on this one. Staff at Lichfield-based Keelys swapped their usual suits for a ‘wear it pink’ campaign in aid of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. While the ladies pictured have made a bit of a half-hearted ...
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Last in the Kew
George 'Gideon' Osborne will have caught it in the neck from his spin doctors for a maladroit attempt to come across as a man of the people (‘we're all in this together’, don’t forget). The shadow chancellor argued that his school, St Paul's, is ‘incredibly liberal’ because ‘your mother could ...
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Security guards do a difficult job
Clive Booth wants to know why visitors to court are asked to open their own bags and take out items as part of security checks. This is HMCS policy and is common practice among many organisations.
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Clients are not units of production
I refer to the recent letter from Hugh Barrett of the Legal Services Commission (‘Access is the number-one priority’, [2009] Gazette, 29 October, 11).
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Supreme Courts appointments process - need for change?
Arrangements to fill the 12th seat on the Supreme Court bench should be well under way by now, with no more applications being accepted for the vacancy.
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Pro bono conundrum and those left exposed by legal aid cuts
The pro bono protocol says work of this nature is ‘always only an adjunct to, and not a substitute for, a proper system of publicly funded legal services’. This can be a difficult distinction at times, but it has been the mantra of the pro bono movement as it has ...
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LSC chairman defiant over family funding cuts
The chairman of the Legal Services Commission struck a defiant note in a debate on family funding cuts, stressing that ‘it is difficult to convince ministers and a hard-headed Treasury that they are getting value for money out of legal aid’. Sir Bill Callaghan was ...
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Call for public to have direct access to the bar
The public wants direct access to barristers in crime, family and immigration work and is ‘dissatisfied with paying two lawyers for one job’, a panel of leading barristers claimed this week. Kevin Leigh, barrister at No5 Chambers in London, said: ‘It’s about giving proper choice to ...
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Grieve issues warning over access to justice 'crisis'
The country is facing ‘the biggest crisis in access to justice since the second world war’, shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve QC told the Bar Council’s annual conference last Saturday. The warning came as Bar Council chairman Desmond Browne QC revealed that Lord Bach, the legal ...
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Gazette reporter wins Bar Council award
Gazette reporter Jonathan Rayner has won the print category of this year’s Bar Council awards for outstanding legal reporting. He received the accolade for a piece published on 5 March that addressed his son’s mental illness and journey through the health and justice ...
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Denton Wilde Sapte reports increase in fee income
City firm Denton Wilde Sapte has emerged as the top performer among firms that have reported half-year financial results so far, as the only firm to increase its fee income. Revenues at the firm for the six months to October rose 3.5% to £87.7m, up from ...
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Unpaid volunteers not covered by discrimination legislation
Volunteers who give their time unpaid to charities are not covered by domestic or European equal treatment legislation designed to protect employees, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled. The ruling arose from a claim brought by a citizens advice bureau volunteer who alleged she had ...
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‘Dire need’ for solicitors to undertake pro bono work
There is a ‘dire need’ for solicitors to undertake pro bono work, legal aid minister Lord Bach admitted this week. Addressing Monday’s joint national pro bono conference in London, which kicked off National Pro Bono Week, Bach suggested there should be a ‘professional expectation’ ...
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Flint Bishop finds marketing success with affiliate partnerships
A Midlands firm has come up with an innovative way to market online legal services ahead of the more competitive environment heralded by the Legal Services Act 2007. Flint Bishop has set up what it calls an ‘affiliate partnership’ distribution channel, whereby it targets organisations with ...
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Scrapping single renewal date for PII 'improbable', claims SRA
A move to scrap the single renewal date for professional indemnity insurance (PII) in 2010 is ‘improbable,’ the Solicitors Regulation Authority said this week. The SRA also warned that any shift to staggered renewals ‘will not in itself significantly alter the overall dynamics of the market’. ...
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Law Society Council considers 'useful' Hunt review
Law Society president Robert Heslett last week praised Lord Hunt’s ‘very useful’ review of legal services regulation, welcoming the Tory peer’s core proposal for self-governance for firms that meet robust levels of internal compliance.
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Call for better career information for law students
The Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) called for law students to be given better information about their career prospects to avoid disappointment as the number of people choosing a law degree hit a new high. Provisional figures from UCAS, the organisation that runs the university and college ...