Last 3 months headlines – Page 2822
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It’s not enough to be a good lawyer
Having read a number of pieces recently on diversity and the lack of women and ethnic minorities in senior leadership positions in the legal profession, I keep seeing similar comments about lack of these opportunities. The message seems to come across again and again that opportunities need to be offered ...
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Results season matters more this year
It’s law firm results season – with every day bringing news of financial results, for the top-100 firms in particular.
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Ministry IT costs soar as deadline looms
Numbers of temporary staff working on the Ministry of Justice’s £500m National Offender Management Service (NOMS) IT system have soared as the government rushes to complete projects before the general election, research has revealed. NOMS aims to share data across 125 prisons and 35 probation services. The project is due ...
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Acted for Ian Brady in prison application
Who? Corinne Singer, 51, a mental health consultant at virtual national firm Scott-Moncrieff & Associates (Scomo). Why is she in the news? Acted for moors murderer Ian Brady in his application to be moved from Ashworth maximum security hospital back to prison. Singer submitted that, because Brady is not benefiting ...
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Magna Carta: four of a kind
With one caveat, Obiter is delighted with the plan to bring the four surviving original copies of Magna Carta into one place to kick off the 800th anniversary year in 2015. The unification, supported by magic circle firm Linklaters, will provide a one-off chance to see the four extant copies ...
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SRA to fast track ABS applications
The Solicitors Regulation Authority will fast track alternative business structure applications from firms seeking to bid for new criminal legal aid contracts, it has been revealed. In a letter to the House of Commons Justice Committee, SRA board chair Charles Plant said that ABS applications from non-traditional law firms could ...
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TSol set for major recruitment push
Whitehall’s central legal services provider the Treasury Solicitors Department (TSol) is to recruit 40 lawyers after spending nearly £4.6m on temporary staff through outsourcer Capita, the Gazette can reveal. The recruitment campaign is for advisory, commercial, employment and litigation lawyers at civil service grade 7, with salaries between £47,086 and ...
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SRA to rubber stamp next phase of red tape cuts
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has said it is open to further ideas for cutting regulation after several demands from members of the profession. The regulator is this week expected to rubber stamp the second phase of its programme to reduce red tape. Under the new reforms, compliance officers will no ...
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Trainee retention rates rise at top City firms
The proportion of trainees winning places at top firms has increased this year to an average of 83%, figures for the September intake show. Magic circle firm Slaughter and May reported the highest retention rate, 90%, offering placements to 46 trainees. Rival Clifford Chance said 80% of its 60 trainees ...
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Win tickets to West End play based in PI firm
Britain’s hottest young playwright, Nick Payne, has picked the claims management industry as the subject of his new play, The Same Deep Water as Me, at London’s Donmar Warehouse. The witty and biting portrait of contemporary Britain is set in Scorpion Claims, ‘Luton’s finest personal injury lawyers’, where, apparently a ...
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SRA intervenes after solicitor arrested
A solicitor from Cheshire has been suspended from practising after he was arrested on suspicion of fraud. The Solicitors Regulation Authority today intervened to prevent partner Andrew Taylor from practising at his firm in Cheadle. Police confirmed last week that they had arrested a 56-year-old man on suspicion of fraud ...
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Troubled Challinors owes £11.2m, draft statement of affairs reveals
Troubled Midlands firm Challinors owes more than £11.2m to unsecured creditors as it prepares to go into administration. The firm yesterday confirmed it has filed notice of its intention to appoint administrators and is in talks with insolvency practitioners KSA Group about the future of the business. A draft statement ...
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Firms still hostile to judicial ambitions
More than half (57%) of solicitors eligible for judicial appointment say that they could not rely on the support of their firms when applying for the bench, according to research to be published by the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), the Gazette can reveal. In contrast, 80% of barristers are confident ...
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What the election result will mean for the legal profession
Unless they are unusually concentrated in marginal constituencies, the votes of UK solicitors are unlikely to swing the outcome of the general election in three weeks’ time. However, the main parties’ manifestos have much to say about the law (especially where it relates to crime, human rights and civil liberty), ...
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Fiji rule of law report found in contempt
A Methodist minister in Fiji is awaiting sentencing for contempt after he quoted a Law Society Charity report whose contents were first revealed in the Gazette. The organisation headed by the Reverend Akuila Yabaki, the Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, also faces a crippling fine for ‘scandalising the court’ after its newsletter ...