All News articles – Page 1307
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News
1,000 firms face Santander panel exit over CQS
Up to 1,000 firms risk being removed from Santander’s conveyancing panel at the end of March unless they obtain the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme accreditation, the Society will warn this week. In September last year, the bank changed the terms of its residential conveyancing panel ...
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Wall treat
A solicitor’s office in the City. Brewer, the office manager, sees pretty new 19-year-old intern Pat as fair game. Meanwhile, cynical Miss Janus’s romantic life seems to be over as she is jilted by her lover at the desperate age of 35... Sound familiar? That’s the ...
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Let it snow
How well did your firm or department cope with the snow? (Or how well are you coping? I realise it’s still very much there for some of you.) That’s not just a polite enquiry – though of course I do care – but I actually think ...
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My legal life: Philip Trott
My mother was a political refugee. The family saw Hitler coming, and took a very circuitous route from Czechoslovakia to Bedford Street, London, and refuge here. Ultimately, hearing and seeing what the family had gone through caused me to practise immigration law.
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Lobbying by lawyers – a prickly path
I often avoid writing about sensitive topics, out of cowardice. One of these has been the hyper-sensitive subject of governmental lobbying by lawyers, which is of interest both in the UK and in the EU.
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Memory lane
The Law Society’s Gazette, January 1913 Official shorthand writers in courts of justice At the Annual General Meeting of the Society a resolution was passed referring it to the Council to consider and report whether it would be desirable that official shorthand ...
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Injunction
Conflict of laws – Foreign proceedings – Restraint of foreign proceedings Malhotra v Malhotra and another: Queen's Bench Division, Commercial Court: 30 October 2012 The claimant sought the continuation of ...
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Going underground
The worm has turned. Obiter is fed up with solicitors automatically appearing as baddies in popular culture (not to mention government policy). It is time to start celebrating the profession’s historic heroes. Hero number one was inspired by this month’s 150th anniversary of the London Underground (pictured). ...
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Pull up your socks, Johnny Foreigner
One of the main themes of David Cameron’s recent speech seemed to be deep regret that the EU was just not good enough for the UK. If only it were, he would be delighted to recommend staying. And so he gave poor Johnny Foreigner an ultimatum to pull up his ...
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Five-star quality
Obiter has been checking to see how Professor Richard Susskind’s new book, Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future, is faring at online retailer Amazon. Publisher OUP has priced the book at £9.99. At the time of writing, some vendors were already offering it at £6.73. ...
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Family justice ‘wish list’
Children caught up in the family justice system want their cases dealt with faster and with greater support throughout the process, according to a board made up of 32 young people with direct experience of the system or an interest in children’s rights. The Family ...
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An employee of myself?
I was pleased to read Daniel Sproull’s letter in last week’s Gazette. It has spurred me to put my head over the parapet as well. I am a 67-year-old sole practitioner with no employees. I completed part one of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s diversity survey thinking I would hear no ...
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Green in the dock with technology
Damian Green, minister for criminal justice, tries out new courtroom technology on a visit to the Crown Prosecution Service in Maidstone, Kent. Under the digital strategy of the Law Officers’ Departments, published last month, the CPS is to introduce ‘full digital working’ by December.
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Surveying the damage
Law firms serious about sustaining – never mind building – their businesses should digest the ‘super-survey’ published last week by the Ministry of Justice, Law Society and Legal Services Board. This heavyweight (literally and metaphorically) piece of work offers the deepest insight yet into how practitioners are coping with an ...
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Justice secretary questions hiring of QCs in criminal trials
Taxpayer funding for criminal defence should to go to less-expensive lawyers than QCs, Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, said today. Grayling used an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to criticise the way the annual £1bn criminal legal aid budget is spent, particularly ...
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Secret courts ‘unjust’ warns Law Society
Extending secret courts to ordinary civil justice cases would see the UK ‘stoop to the level of repressive regimes’, the Law Society warns today. In a letter to members of the Public Bill Committee for the Justice and Security Bill, Chancery Lane ...
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Supreme Court stars on YouTube
The Supreme Court’s decision to post videos of judgment summaries on YouTube from tomorrow is great news. It will open up the court to a new audience and build a useful resource for students. As an imperfect practitioner in the art of reducing complex legal arguments to a paragraph or ...
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Legal professional privilege only for lawyers, Supreme Court rules
The Supreme Court ruled today that legal professional privilege (LPP) applies only to qualified lawyers – solicitors and barristers. The eagerly awaited decision, by a majority of 5:2, maintains the existing certainty about the scope of LPP. It confirms that ‘there is no doubt that ...