Last 3 months headlines – Page 1667
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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 ...
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Lasting powers of attorney bureaucracy condemned
Probate solicitors have accused the Office of the Public Guardian of discriminating against the elderly through delays, high prices and excessive bureaucracy. The OPG’s function is to safeguard the interests of vulnerable people, including those who have lost mental capacity through old age or illness. ...
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SRA to revisit equality strategy
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to ‘revisit’ its equality and diversity strategy after criticism from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The strategy was published this month following Lord Ouseley’s report on the disproportionate number of black and minority ethnic solicitors facing disciplinary hearings. It ...
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Chair of 'supercase' review clarifies precedence rule
The chair of a judicial working party on ‘supercases’ has clarified the status of the list of issues submitted to a judge at the start of Commercial Court cases. The list does not take legal precedence over the full pleadings, despite consensus among many City ...
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Music store purchase, nightclub licence and football sponsorship
Indian club: City firm Field Fisher Waterhouse advised nightclub Chinawhite on a licensing agreement to open another club in the Lalit Hotel in New Delhi, India. It will be run and operated by Bharat Hotels, which was advised by its in-house team. ...
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Tri and tri again
Staff from healthcare law firm Capsticks take their own health very seriously. This lycra-clad foursome will be participating in triathlons (running, swimming and cycling) throughout the year. We’re talking world class: solicitor Emma Smith is the World Xterra Champion for her age group (something to do with cycling up volcanoes), ...
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Linklaters announces London job cuts
Magic circle firm Linklaters will cut between 100 and 120 lawyers and 130 to 150 business services employees as it enters into a redundancy consultation with all UK staff. In a statement today (29 January), Simon Davies, Linklaters managing partner, said: ‘There have been significant changes ...
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Hard choices: software patents, open source
This summer the Court of Appeal handed down its latest decision on the patentability of software in the UK, while a new standard licence was published for open source developers.
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Legal profession
Barristers’ fees – Comparators – Funding arrangements Lord Chancellor v John Charles Rees & ors: QBD (Sir Charles Gray): 19 December 2008 The appellant Lord Chancellor appealed against the ...
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Legal advice
Breach of contract – Conditional fee arrangements – Costs – Retainers (1) Bray Walker Solicitors (a firm) (2) Bevans Bray Walkers Ltd (t/a Bevans) v Carlo Moise Silvera: QBD (Mr Justice Blake): 18 December 2008 ...
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Insolvency specialists - high demand, short supply
The UK has nosedived into recession – but for some this financial cloud has a silver lining. After a relatively lean decade, the downturn is potentially lucrative for insolvency specialists. The current skills shortage in this practice area, though, is a corollary of the perception by ...
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Accountancy/legal mega-firms will expose conflicts of interest
I read your opinion ‘A Level Playing Field’ (see [2008] Gazette, 15 January, 10) about proposed reforms of the Scottish legal profession with great concern. I recognise that the implementation ...
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Give it away free
As you correctly reported, the internet is about to overtake traditional channels for people to find a solicitor for simple legal work, such as conveyancing and writing a will. However, I would suggest that law firms need to look beyond this to ensure that they maintain, or increase, their market ...
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Complex world
The reference to ‘a simple transaction, such as conveyancing or making a will’ in your article, together with the absence of any quotation marks, is yet another insulting nail in the coffin of our professionalism. If the article’s authors really have the necessary expertise to use such dismissive words in ...
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Crossing continents: transnational cases raise important issues
What have the son of a Liberian dictator, a rabidly anti-Jewish Australian and a Rwandan diplomat all got in common? They are all defendants where courts in one state are seeking, or have recently sought, to decide criminal liability for alleged actions in another. As such, they illustrate the best ...
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Connect with your clients
Our news item last week on the rise of the internet as a medium for choosing a legal adviser has touched a nerve. Traditional methods of choosing a solicitor, such as word of mouth or using the ‘family firm’, still dominate, but the web is ...
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Improving justice in the family courts
Family Justice in View was published by the Ministry of Justice and laid before Parliament on 16 December 2008. It represents the government’s intended policy on creating uniformity in approach to transparency in the family courts, and is based on two consultations undertaken ...
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That’s the way it is
Keeping up with our theme of solicitor musicians, this week we present… The King himself. Mark Fitch (pictured), a litigation partner at Hatch Brenner, in Norwich, is lead singer in an eight-piece Elvis tribute band, the BlueSueders. The Sueders describe ...
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She’s a diamond
Never, ever, underestimate a legal secretary. Last week, Obiter dared to suggest that the 39 years and five months that Ann Moody worked as a secretary for retired solicitor, Tony Mackintosh might be some kind of record. Beat that, we challenged. And, inevitably, you did.