Last 3 months headlines – Page 2821
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Cry freedom of information
The eyes of the news media have been elsewhere, but the House of Commons justice committee has just restated an important constitutional principle: freedom of information is a good thing. A long-awaited post-legislative review of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 concludes: ‘We do not believe that there has been ...
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Contact details
Why are addresses and telephone numbers so frequently omitted from email communications (despite the plethora of disclaimers etc attached)? Why in the most elaborate websites is ‘contact us’ the hardest or last thing to find? Why is there a tendency on the part, usually of the most prestigious firms, to ...
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Cashflow outlook worsening, new LMS quarterly survey shows
Cashflow problems are worsening for law firms, according to results from the Law Society’s Law Management Section (LMS) financial benchmarking quarterly. The survey, the first results of which are to be published tomorrow, found that 40% of firms were experiencing more cashflow pressures than in the previous quarter. Firms' responses ...
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Maggie Maggie Maggie! In in in!
The last time I was in the same room as Margaret Thatcher, several hundred Japanese businessmen were there, too. It was Tokyo, September 1989, the high noon of Japan's economic power. World leaders were passing through every week to pay homage to the yen, but prime minister Thatcher was different. ...
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Bring out your dead
If 200 people in England and Wales dropped dead one week from a mysterious unknown cause, you’d think our supposedly nanny state would learn about it right away.
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Cold called
To be honest, I knew I was asking for trouble by picking up the phone at teatime. The only calls that come through on that particular landline are from investment advisers or chaps asking for my passwords so they can fix my IT. Sure enough, when I picked up the ...
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Chilling effect
As a media legal scandal, it didn’t amount to much: no superinjunctions, celebrities or retired police horses. But my one (so far - touch wood) experience of being sued for defamation as a journalist illustrates an important shortcoming of the government’s current proposals for libel reform.
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Fear and loathing in libel reform
To put it mildly, this is not a good time for politicians to be seen doing favours for media proprietors. Yet this is inevitably how the upcoming debate on libel reform - expected to be kicked off with a bill in the Queen’s speech in May - is going to ...
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Opportunities in Colombia
Colombia: isn’t it a bit dicey? Lawyers in Latin America’s fourth-largest economy and deepest-rooted democracy could be forgiven for showing irritation at the inevitable question. Invariably, the reply is ‘things have changed’.
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People’s peers
Anyone for ping-pong? Yes, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill is back in the Lords this week, for the upper house to pick over its wounded amendments following their savaging last week in the Commons. In the end, of course, the Commons will get its way. As ...
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Halabja remembered
Under a glass case in the Halabja memorial museum is a brown, three-strand hemp rope, the kind a lorry driver might use for tying down loads. A black label bears the date 25 January 2010. I had a pretty good idea of the significance, but I asked the curator anyway: ...
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Iraq: fragile justice
Nearly 10 years after regime change, seven years since the first democratic elections and despite several billion dollars worth of targeted aid, the rule of law in Iraq ranges from fragile to non-existent. In one of the first tests of Europe’s Common Security and Defence Policy, a small and little-known ...
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My legal life: Roger Terrell
My father was a farmer but I didn’t fancy a career in agriculture. The beauty of a law degree is that it then takes you on a well-defined path. My training contract was with the legal department at Nottinghamshire County Council. I was articled to John Hayes, who had a ...
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My legal life: Julia Chain
I married an academic, so one of us had to be able to support the family – law seemed like a good profession. Legal education back then taught us nothing about dealing with clients – it was six months of learning by rote. What was excellent was the training. I ...
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My legal life: Sophie Khan
Before I settled on law I wanted to be a conservationist. I had read Peter Matthiessen’s book The Snow Leopard, in which he diarised his journey through the Himalayas, and wanted to follow in his footsteps. I’ve always been a worker and couldn’t wait to qualify. I can remember in ...
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Tarzan and the briefs
In his heyday, Michael ‘Tarzan’ Heseltine MP was renowned for finding the G-spot of the Conservative Party. This week, Lord Heseltine of Thenford seems to have worked the trick across the political spectrum. Whatever the likelihood of it being implemented, his ‘No Stone Unturned in Pursuit of Growth’ report brought ...
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My legal life: Myles Jackman
I have a masters in film and used to run my own company making low-budget productions, but there was no money in it. A friend’s mother ran a small criminal law firm which back in 2000 dealt with the case of Afghans who hijacked a plane and forced it to ...
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My legal life: Geoff Wild
The whole point of lawyers is that we serve others. We make things better for other people. That is what drew me into the public sector in the first place and has kept me there ever since. At the end of the day, a client simply wants to be made ...
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Can’t stand newspapers? Then stand up for a free press
Every collector of modern quotations knows Tom Stoppard’s: ‘I’m with you on the free press. It’s the newspapers I can’t stand.’ Probably most of us would agree. What’s less well known is the context of the quote, perhaps because the play from which it comes, Night and Day (1978*), now ...
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Portal protestors issue letter before action
Personal injury lawyers have started a process that could lead to a judicial review into reforms planned for the Road Traffic Accident Portal next April.