Last 3 months headlines – Page 1749
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New conduct code for third-party funders
Plans to introduce a code of conduct for third-party litigation funders have moved a major step closer after a high-level summit, the Gazette can reveal. The code, which will be endorsed by the Civil Justice Council (CJC), will set minimum standards of behaviour and outline the ...
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Question of conflict
Leading employment lawyers have questioned the use by legal and professional services group Parabis of its subsidiary law firm to defend its employees in a poaching dispute. Parabis employees Martin Hynes, Sarah Preston and Heather Smith were defended by Plexus Law, one of four law firms ...
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Super regulator names members
Solicitors will make up one-third of the members of the new overarching regulator of legal services, the Ministry of Justice has disclosed. The new Legal Services Board was set up under the 2007 Legal Services Act to simplify regulation and ‘put the consumer first’. ...
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GMC witness prescription
The medical profession’s regulator will publish new rules this week to ensure doctors acting as expert witnesses understand their overriding duty is to the administration of justice. The General Medical Council’s new guidelines appear at a time of crisis in the witness system, following complaints about ...
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£32k copyright dispute
The dispute with two silks over copyright issues related to the Society’s Code of Conduct cost the Law Society more than £30,000, council members were told last week. Chief Executive Des Hudson said the total spend on the litigation – which was settled in April on ...
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Tender pilot for legal aid
Competitive or best value tendering (BVT) for criminal defence legal aid work will be piloted before its full introduction in 2011, the Legal Services Commission (LSC) announced last week. The scheme will be trialled in Avon and Somerset, and Manchester, in 2010. It was expected to ...
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Pre-nuptial agreements
Advising your clients about pre-nups is essential. Forget the McCartneys. The most important recent ancillary relief decision is Crossley v Crossley[2007] EWCA Civ 1491, [2007] All ER(D) 396 (Dec), not so much for showing how courts will deal with cases on similar facts, but for implicitly ...
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Discrimination: possession proceedings and landlords
The House of Lords decision in Lewisham LBC v Malcolm [2008] UKHL 43, concerning the effect of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 on possession proceedings, will come as a great relief to landlords (see [2008] Gazette, 10 July, 23). Although the decision may be seen as wholly sensible in a ...
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Health and Safety
Accidents – Breach of statutory duty – Employers’ liability – Oil rigs – Scotland – Work equipment Spencer-Franks v Kellogg Brown & Root Ltd & Ors: HL (Lords Hoffmann, Rodger of Earlsferry, Carswell, Mance, Neuberger of Abbotsbury): 2 July 2008 ...
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Immigration
Education – Courses – Examinations – Extensions of time – Leave to remain – Students G Omerenma Obed & 7 Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Sedley, Longmore, Moses): 1 July 2008 ...
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Civil procedure
Costs – Paper applications – Protective costs orders – Setting aside – Application of principles for making orders – Procedure in Court of Appeal R (on the application of Compton) v Wiltshire Primary Care Trust: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Waller, Buxton, Smith): 1 July 2008 ...
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Early days for flexible working
Many firms have flexible working policies, but take-up remains relatively low. Is a decent work-life balance possible in the legal profession? There is often a time lag between policy and reality. Despite legislative changes and the fact that many firms now have work-life balance policies, ...
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Day In The Life
Solicitor Anthony Edwards tells Catherine Baksi why, after 36 years in practice, he still enjoys going to work Anthony Edwards is a solicitor-advocate and senior partner at East End of London crime and family firm TV Edwards, which recently merged with Finsbury firm Taylor Nichol. He ...
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Spurred on
Solicitors think nothing of traversing the world in the name of ‘charidee’ – hopping across the Sahara blindfolded with a small dry cracker for sustenance, that sort of thing. But one of the more fun-sounding activities was that undertaken by a team of six from Salisbury ...
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Long and short of it
The annual report of the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner has always been a slightly odd document in our view – for its length, if nothing else. You wonder why a 20-person organisation whose sole task is to oversee the Law Society’s complaints-handling activity has to ...
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Feeling flushed
We have all heard of the Seven Wonders of the World – the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon etcetera, but Obiter has learned of a new addition to the monumental list – the Fertility Toilet of South Wales. It is to be found in the Crown Prosecution ...
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Destroying the knowledge base
The decline in the number of experienced duty solicitors is cause for great concern, despite what the LSC says Derek Hill, director of the Criminal Defence Service at the Legal Services Commission (LSC), puts ...
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Falconer fiction
It is worrying that Lord Falconer should believe that: ‘We are a country that plays by the rules’ (see [2008] Gazette, 26 June, 16). Many of us have long suspected that New Labour inhabits a different planet from the rest of the country and his comment tends to reinforce that ...