Last 3 months headlines – Page 1646

  • News

    LSB publishes business plan and cost recovery proposals

    2009-04-09T00:00:00Z

    The Legal Services Board today published its business plan for 2009/10 and named its senior management team. The plan gives priority to work on regulatory independence, alternative business structures, providing effective redress and the development of a model of regulatory excellence in legal services. ...

  • News

    Copyright Tribunal overhaul will fast-track small claims

    2009-04-09T00:00:00Z

    The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) today proposed to streamline large-scale Copyright Tribunal cases and allow smaller claims to be fast-tracked, as it launched a review of the tribunal’s rules. The IPO said the changes will make the tribunal quicker and cheaper to use, particularly for individuals ...

  • News

    Is £90,000 too much protection, or not enough?

    2009-04-09T00:00:00Z

    First of all: I’m a fan of the single market, which means you can probably label me ‘pro-Europe’. Having sat through lectures on EU law and the law of the single market while at university...

  • News

    Social immobility the norm in legal profession

    2009-04-09T00:00:00Z

    The legal world emerges badly from the findings of government research into social mobility published today. According to the Phase 1 report of the Cabinet Office’s Fair Access Panel, solicitors and barristers were far more likely than the population at large to have been privately schooled. ...

  • News

    Litigation: (nearly) the new alternative dispute resolution?

    2009-04-09T00:00:00Z

    CEDR Solve, the dispute resolution services arm of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution, announced that it has just dealt with its 15,000th referred dispute since its launch in 1990...

  • News

    Tax prosecutors to merge with CPS

    2009-04-09T00:00:00Z

    The Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO) is to merge with the Crown Prosecution Service four years after it was set up, in a move to save public money and improve efficiency. The Attorney General, Lady Scotland QC (pictured), announced the change following a review of ...

  • News

    Scotland must try harder after report on trafficking

    2009-04-08T00:00:00Z

    Scotland lags behind the rest of the UK in the fight against people trafficking. That is, at least, what a Scottish government report published earlier this month says.

  • News

    Legal aid - 60th anniversary

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    Steve Hynes is director of the Legal Action Group As it enters its seventh decade, and despite its flaws, legal aid remains one of the best such systems in the world, providing access to ...

  • News

    A roundup of several recent trademark decisions

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    Decisions on trademarks are handed down by a number of tribunals and come too thick and fast for the non-specialist practitioner to be alive to every one. What follows is a crash course in some of the most significant decisions of the past few months.

  • News

    Criminal procedure

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    Fraud – Disclosure orders – Jurisdiction – Realisable property King v Director of the Serious Fraud Office: HL (Lords Phillips of Worth Matravers, Scott of Foscote, Walker of Gestingthorpe, Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, Mance): 18 March 2009 ...

  • News

    Human rights

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    Criminal law – Discrimination – Peaceful enjoyment of possessions – Pubs and bars - Smoking R (on the application of Howitt) v Preston Magistrates’ Court: DC (Lord Justice Richards, Mr Justice Tugendhat): 19 March 2009 ...

  • News

    Personal inquiry

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    Civil procedure – Damages – Periodical payments orders Cobham Hire Services Ltd v Benjamin Eeles (by his mother & litigation friend Julie Eeles): CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Dyson, Thomas, Lady Justice Smith): 13 March 2009 ...

  • News

    Family

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    Local government – Care orders – Child protection – Foster carers – Islam Re B-M (children) sub nom AM v (1) a local authority (2) children’s guardian: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Laws, Wall, Lawrence Collins): 16 March 2009 ...

  • News

    What impact is the downturn having on Eastern Europe?

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    As Londoners struggled under a deluge of Siberian snow in February, the City played host to the Russian finance minister, Alexei Kudrin. Michael Pugh, a capital markets partner at Lovells who has been working in the Commonwealth of Independent States region since 1992, flew back from Moscow to the Guildhall ...

  • News

    Uncovering the potential of Brazil’s wine industry

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    Snaking our way upwards, through the lush, bucolic vegetation that hugs the rolling hills surrounding the coastal city of Port Alegre, it is hard to imagine that there is any sort of wine industry, let alone vineyard, in this thick sub-tropical landscape.

  • News

    Access to justice

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    ‘You in the legal profession by any chance chief? I had that John Mortimer in the back of my cab once – lovely fella, he was. Didn’t half talk a lot, mind. Now then, the Law Society. Is it OK if I drop you at the corner, or do you ...

  • News

    Back the right horse

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    Although not normally a betting man, Obiter is tempted to put a monkey on trainee solicitor Simon Latchford’s first ride at Aintree on Saturday. Latchford, 29, has won the right to compete in the John Smith’s People’s Race on Grand National Day (see [2009] Gazette, 5 February, 31). The trainee ...

  • News

    Top role for top cat

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    Employment solicitor Andy Graham of Leeds firm Ison Harrison landed a role in newly released football flick The Damned United. The film charts footballing legend Brian Clough’s ill-fated 44 days as manager of then mighty Leeds United. Leeds fan Graham plays the role of Terry ‘Top Cat’ Cooper, England left ...

  • News

    Sugar leaves sour taste

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    The curse of Obiter has struck. Last week, we praised qualified lawyer Anita Shah (pictured) as she set out to become Sir Alan Sugar’s next apprentice in the BBC reality TV show. Unfortunately, the ‘self-proclaimed perfectionist’ was not perfect enough for Sugar and was fired in the first episode. She ...

  • News

    Memory lane

    2009-04-02T00:00:00Z

    The Law Society’s Gazette, April 1939 Poor Persons Procedure