All News articles – Page 1275
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News
The increasing intolerance of British policymakers
On March 22, Nick Clegg delivered his first major speech on immigration since assuming the role of deputy prime minister. In addition to admonishing past Labour policies and highlighting more recent coalition reforms, Clegg outlined the ambitions of his own party, the Liberal Democrats, in building what he referred to ...
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‘Right to die’ man breaks his silence
The paralysed man who took over the late Tony Nicklinson’s claims on the right to die with the help of a doctor has abandoned anonymity. Paul Lamb, 58, previously known only as ‘L’, was left paraplegic after a road accident in 1990. In a statement released ...
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Doing the BIS on employment law reform?
Obiter was coralled with a job lot of employment lawyers in the posh Caledonian Club near Hyde Park Corner last week. They were there to debate progress that the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) has made with its reforms of employment law. It’s ...
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SRA wants compensation fund to cover intervention bill
The SRA has decided not to impose a one-off levy on solicitors to pay for the rising cost of intervening in failed firms, but wants the multimillion-pound bill to fall on the rapidly diminishing compensation fund instead.
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May unveils bilateral treaty to deal with Qatada
The proposed treaty with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan that home secretary Theresa May announced today as part of her continuing efforts to deport suspected terrorist Abu Qatada excludes the use of evidence obtained through torture and also allows for the press and public to be excluded from a trial ...
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The benefits of IT forums
The South West Legal IT Forum meeting last Thursday hosted by Michelmores in Exeter was attended by representatives from 30 firms from across the south-west peninsula as well as local sponsors Itec and Nexus Open Systems.
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News
Revealed: Grayling's plan to drive a wedge between bar and solicitors
Justice secretary Chris Grayling has sought to drive a wedge between solicitors and barristers over the drastic plans to cut criminal legal aid and restructure the market, the Gazette has learned. At a meeting attended by circuit leaders and civil servants yesterday, Grayling said that ...
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QASA gets go-ahead from bar regulator
The Bar Standards Board has approved the handbook for the controversial Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. At the regulator’s meeting last night, lay member Malcolm Cohen was the sole dissenting voice. He told the board: ‘The scheme is not proportionate to the perceived risk and I ...
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Winslow backers loosen the purse strings
Obiter’s call for imaginative ways to fund the case at the centre of Terence Rattigan’s play The Winslow Boy show a welcome spirit of innovation in these difficult times. Mark Rummins of Kent has a simple solution: ‘A pay-day loan from a high street broker. That should sort them out ...
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‘Final and binding’ awards in family law
Dennis Sheridan’s article on family law arbitration sets out the key benefits of the new Institute of Family Law Arbitrators (IFLA) scheme, but risks being dangerously misleading in one respect, namely that ‘awards’ made under the scheme are ‘final and binding’. More worryingly, he makes this claim in relating what ...
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Queen’s awards for legal sector businesses
Three providers of legal services are among the 152 winners of this year’s Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, the UK’s highest accolades for business success, announced yesterday. Intellectual property specialist EIP Partnership LLP, established in 2000, wins an award for international trade. The firm has 37 ...
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Aux murs, citoyens
Relations between the UK government and judiciary may not be perfect, but they’re probably better than over the channel where the French political class has been transfixed by the discovery of a ‘mur des cons’ in the headquarters of the Magistrates Union. The wall is ...
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SRA getting better at complaints – independent assessor
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has ‘significantly improved’ how it deals with complaints about its service, an independent assessor has concluded. The Independent Complaints Review Service (ICRS) upheld or partially upheld 75 cases out of 245 separate complaints issued from October 2011 to the end of 2012. ...
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MoJ announces new deal for courtroom interpreters
The Ministry of Justice today announced measures which it said would increase the take-home pay of interpreters in a bid to improve the quality of the service to courts and the justice sector.
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Stress rising among lawyers – LawCare
Three-quarters of lawyers say they are more stressed now than they were five years ago, according to a survey by legal charity LawCare. Responses from more than 1,000 solicitors, barristers and legal executives blamed overwork, poor management, lack of appreciation, and feeling isolated or unsupported. ...
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Rape figures show all-time high in conviction rate
Conviction rates for rape have risen to an all-time high, according to figures published by the Crown Prosecution Service today. The statistics reveal that from April 2012 to the end of March 2013 the CPS prosecuted 3,692 rape cases. Of those, 63.2% resulted in convictions, up ...
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Hague’s concern sits ill with Tory agenda
You might have thought that an organisation called the Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice would not have much hope of a grant from a Tory cabinet minister. Too much resonance of Harriet Harman. Too much potential irony in how cuts, like those to legal aid, have been directed not against ...
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Thatcher pageantry sets inn against inn
Last week’s funeral of Lady Thatcher left half the Gazette’s newsdesk – and significant numbers of lawyers – stranded on the wrong side of a line of steel opposite the Royal Courts of Justice. Such a disruption got Obiter wondering: was this a posthumous dig at members of the bar ...
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CJC recommends measures against defamation costs
Measures to protect individuals against major adverse costs when defending defamation claims brought by wealthy corporations were included in a Civil Justice Council (CJC) report published last week. The report was prompted by concerns over changes in how ‘no win, no fee’ conditional fee arrangements will ...