Last 3 months headlines – Page 1642
-
News
The true cost of legal aid cuts
The legal services industry in the UK generates around £15bn a year, which is 1.3% of GDP, while public funding of legal services amounts to just over £2bn. Interestingly, I attended a presentation recently which pointed out that this sum is less than the combined annual fee income of two ...
-
News
Will there be a global code of conduct?
I have just returned from the annual conference of the International Bar Association (IBA) in Madrid – the largest ever, with more than 5,000 lawyers from around the world. It wasn’t the best-designed conference to attend...
-
News
Don’t give away the Crown jewels – hold on, where are those Crown jewels?
I see that that venerable London institution, the London Evening Standard, is becoming a freebie after 182 years of Londoners paying for it. The most interesting comment on this came from the Standard’s editor Geordie Greig...
-
News
Local government: determining bias – and what is a public authority?
‘In law,’ Lord Steyn once reminded us, ‘context is everything’. And context was particularly relevant on 24 June this year, when the Court of Appeal agreed with Mr Justice Collins that a planning inspector’s decision was tainted by apparent bias...
-
News
London and the south-east are learning from the lessons of the downturn
Money is still being made in London and its environs, with a recent bellwether survey suggesting that large law firms – of which the region has more than its fair share – are ‘over the worst’.
-
News
Muttley crew
As lawyers know, when the Legal Services Act 2007 comes fully into force, they will be able to choose from lots of different ‘vehicles’ in which to operate. Speaking at the Young Barristers conference last weekend, Robin Tolson QC of London’s Outer Temple, clearly a fan of the Wacky ...
-
News
Reasons not to be cheerful
Obiter was shocked this week to hear some sad news about the legal profession. Apparently lawyers are the ‘least happy’ professionals in the UK, according to recruiters Badenoch & Clark. In a survey of thousands of (pretty grumpy) professionals, only 52% of lawyers ...
-
News
Ode to nowhere
On no – what have we done. After being roundly castigated for describing conveyancing and probate as ‘prosaic’, the Gazette coupled a shamefaced apology with a tongue-in-cheek plea for poems celebrating those undervalued disciplines. And still they come. This week Peter W Marsh, of Peter ...
-
News
Homeward pound
They say in business that Cash is King, but at Brixton firm Ziadies it’s not only notes bearing the Queen’s head that are legal (sic) tender. The firm says it accepts a new local currency, the Brixton pound, or the B£, as valid payment for oaths and affidavits. The initiative ...
-
News
Memory lane
Describing the decorum of a past National Conference. Book review of Lawyer Heal Thyself, a divorce lawyer with marital issues. Law Society’s Gazette, October 1969 ...
-
News
Factory flaw
The newly announced Claims Process for RTA claims valued up to £10,000 is the latest attack on the rights of those injured in road traffic accidents.
-
News
Fixed costs folly
The news from the current Civil Litigation Costs review by Lord Jackson becomes more depressing by the day. Despite the fact that raising the small claims limit has been debated fully in the recent past, the threat is being made again...
-
News
Conflicting messages
I cannot be the only person who is left feeling utterly bemused by the conflicting ideas that have been aired in the Gazette of late.
-
News
How the ABI wants to get the PII market back on track
The frenetic pace of the renewals season is now over and this year seems, for many, to have been the most challenging yet. With the 1 October deadline gone, there has been anger, disappointment and worry among smaller solicitors’ firms over the cost and availability of cover, as highlighted in ...
-
News
Title hijack
I may be alone but I was not aware, with the coming into force of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, that solicitors will no longer bear the illustrious title of ‘Solicitor of the Supreme Court’.
-
News
Helping solicitors in the ARP
Reading the latest article describing the huge number of firms in the ARP my immediate reaction was one of sympathy. Last year, to my huge shock, I found myself in the ARP. I have moved on and life is good, but at the time it was a dreadful feeling.
-
News
PII – problems and solutions
Having read the ‘Solution to the insurance crisis’ letter (1 October) it occurs to me that, if those solicitors who actually meet their conveyancing clients (and there are still many of us), forwarded the copy passport and driving licence or other ID ...
-
News
Law Society responds to PII concerns
I want to take the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Law Society to some of the comments that have been made in response to recent articles in the Gazette about PII, and to clarify our position. I want to do so to rebut some of the more fanciful ...