Last 3 months headlines – Page 1666
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City kitty
As if times weren’t challenging enough for City solicitors, a rumour doing the rounds at London’s City Hall set a few corporate fingers twitching towards their calculators. Apparently, Mayor Boris Johnson has come up with a splendid wheeze for funding the Crossrail east-west rail link – a £213-per-square-metre levy on ...
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Experience necessary
Though a sly old fox, Obiter has almost been out-foxed by Hertfordshire law firm Curwens. We requested details of long-serving legal secretaries and were startled to receive Curwens’ surely unbeatable record of 72 years. Closer scrutiny, however, revealed the firm was claiming the sum of Jenny Rogers’ 48 years and ...
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Court out
Civil litigator Hilary Messer, this issue’s Lawyer In The News, told Obiter she has occasionally misunderstood a judge’s meaning. There was the time when, as a newly qualified solicitor, she got to court early and found herself killing time with the (female) judge. The latter whispered: ‘What are you wearing?’ ...
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Practice criminal law and earn the minimum wage
I was admitted to the roll on 1 September 2008. To be able to work in criminal law, I had to complete police station accreditation, which involved a portfolio of 27,000 words and travelling some 200 miles to take the critical incidents exam. If I want to become a ...
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Judicial obstacles
The recent research carried out by Professor Dame Hazel Genn and quoted in Joshua Rozenberg’s article [see [2009] Gazette, 15 January, 8] highlighted clearly the barriers that women solicitors can face when applying for a judicial appointment.
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Buck the market
Lord Turner’s recent report says the banking crisis was caused by banks abandoning proven, prudent banking principles. Their attitude seems to have been ‘everyone in the market is doing it, so it must be all right. We have to copy them or go out of business’.
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Novel experience
May I congratulate Neil Rose on an excellent article about combining a professional legal career with that of a novelist (see [2008] Gazette, 18 December, 8). I am not a solicitor, but have worked as administrator for LawCare for the past ten years, and also had my third novel published ...
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Britain’s military prosecutor will never ‘go native’
News that President Obama had decided to end military trials at Guantanamo Bay broke just as I was on my way to see Britain’s new military prosecutor, providing me with a perfect starting point for my interview. But it is very difficult to imagine Bruce Houlder ...
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Dying in a democracy
‘The Official Secrets Act is not there to protect secrets, it is there to protect officials!’, the archetypal mandarin Sir Humphrey Appleby told his ministerial dupe Jim Hacker in the timeless sitcom Yes Minister. One recalled Sir Humphrey’s cynicism upon the publication of the Coroners ...
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Compensation fears force schools to cancel trips
Is it me, or is the latest bandwagon for ‘compensation culture’ myth-peddlers that schools and schoolchildren are no longer able to undertake activities and trips that we all enjoyed when growing up? It is not unusual for claimant personal injury lawyers to feel that the whole ...
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Conveyancing specialists go into receivership
The Law Society has urged residential conveyancers not to panic following the collapse of two large Yorkshire firms. Leeds-based Fox Hayes, which employed 115 people, last week went into administration, joining Bradford-based property conveyancing and home information pack processing company Hammonds Support Services (HSS). ...
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Massive rise in civil court fees slammed
Plans for some civil court fees to rise nearly fifty-fold to help raise an extra £38m for the Ministry of Justice have come under fire. Proposals out for consultation could see hikes in 26 fee areas in civil court matters, with increases in 10 fee areas ...
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Firm puts staff on four day week to avoid redundancies
A well-known City firm has offered fee-earners and other staff four-day working weeks as the economic outlook for its business deteriorates. James Holder, managing partner at Charles Russell, said the scheme aims to keep the team together until the market picks up again. ...
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Firms will need more non-lawyers in post-Legal Services Act world
The evolving market and pressure from clients means law firms will have to employ more non-qualified staff, solicitors have been warned. Professor Stephen Mayson, director of the College of Law’s Legal Services Policy Institute, said current economic conditions mean consolidation among firms is inevitable and the ...
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Civil legal aid proposals slammed by practitioners
Practitioner groups have slammed the Legal Services Commission’s ‘ill-formed’ and ‘illogical’ plans to create a more integrated service for civil legal aid, which they claim will restrict choice. The LSC received 350 responses to its consultation on the new procurement model to replace the current ...
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Phone-recording rule will hit tiny number of firms
Only a tiny number of law firms will be affected by a requirement to record telephone instructions from March, an expert has advised. Ian Muirhead, managing director of Solicitors Independent Financial Advice, said the new rule is aimed at curbing insider dealing and will affect around ...
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Privy Council must go, says civil liberty group
The ‘dysfunctional’ and anachronistic Privy Council has no place in a parliamentary democracy and should be abolished, civil rights group Justice has said. In a report published this week, Patrick O’Connor QC of Doughty Street Chambers said the Privy Council (pictured with the Queen, in ...
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Practising fees for in-house lawyers could be cut
In-house lawyers could pay less for practising certificates once the Solicitors Regulation Authority decides how it will fund itself in the new era ushered in by the Legal Services Act. The Gazette has learned that the SRA is about to consult the entire profession ...
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Community legal advice helpline could go offshore
Members of the public calling the Community Legal Advice helpline run by the Legal Services Commission could in future be answered outside the UK, it has emerged. The Legal Services Commission is to issue tenders for five-year contracts to provide a contact centre and telephone services ...
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Mediation will come to the fore for personal injury
Personal injury mediation will gain in popularity as a result of the credit crunch, according to a leading provider. Maurice Nichols, mediator and consultant to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution’s personal injury unit (PIU), said: ‘There are always two important drivers to personal injury litigation ...