All News articles – Page 1315
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News
Lawyers are the same – though different – wherever you go
I have travelled a good deal for more than 15 years, either on behalf of the Law Society or for my current employer, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE). Since this has been paid either wholly or now in small part by solicitors, it is time ...
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SRA sleuths uncover email excuses
Obiter is no stranger to unwanted emails. Every day we get a barrage of useless notifications, updates and newsletters (not counting the Gazette’s daily update, of course). But you might have thought that a practising law firm would open emails with ‘SRA Compliance’ in the sender ...
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Lord Judge and eternal vigilance
When you are lord chief justice a spot of self-deprecation tends to go unnoticed. After all, you’ve reached the top of the tree, have an unimpeachable track record and everybody hangs on your every word. Nobody’s going to take seriously your claim that you have made the most stupid observation ...
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Do single joint experts work?
The main rationale for using a single joint expert (SJE) is to reduce the costs and delays associated with using expert witnesses on behalf of each of the parties in litigation. This has been in place for a number of years, but experience of SJE appointments confirms that new issues ...
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Facts speak louder than words
Always alert to linguistic trends, Obiter has noted a new euphemism being applied to what Private Eye used to call ‘Ugandan discussions’. It originates in a letter by Lord Justice Leveson dismissing any suggestion of impropriety resulting from the relationship after his inquiry into the press between the inquiry’s second ...
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PI firms can prosper with right skills, says Graves
Personal injury firms can survive and prosper in the new era of lower fixed fees if they upskill their workforce and filter out more profitable cases, a leading legal consultant has told the Gazette. Lesley Graves (pictured), founder of Citadel Law, said that up to 10% ...
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Resistance is not futile
The MoJ consultation ‘Transforming Legal Aid: Delivering a more credible and efficient system’ was recently published. The proposals include the removal of legal aid from all prison law matters, save for: sentence length issues that specifically engage article 5 and the right to a review of ongoing detention (basically parole ...
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News
Model of a modern secretary general
You may wonder what the secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) does all day. This is a proper question, since solicitors contribute to my pay. So here goes, with all events taken from last week. If you want to see how I am ...
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News
Governance threat to M&A
Worries about compliance and governance standards in companies that are takeover targets are having a chilling effect on the international M&A market, a major international study has shown. The study, by the Economist Intelligence Unit for international law firm Baker & McKenzie, says that unless ...
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UKIP’s law and justice policy
What is most notable about UKIP’s 2013 local ‘manifesto’ is not its brevity, but its banality. We know about the dog-whistle scapegoating of ‘immigrants’ and ‘travellers’. What else is there? UKIP believes council tax should go down, tax generally should be ‘as low as possible’ (zero, ...
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News
What a way to make a living
Estella Brown of Middlesex firm Goodwins family law has obviously been working 9 to 5 on the potential for appropriate legal mergers. How about the Law Offices of Kevin J. Dolley LLC in St Louis, US, with Jackson Parton Solicitors from London, to make Dolley Parton? Any more marriages made ...
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Tiny misunderstanding
Just when you think the legal profession has finally got its collective head around this internet thingie, there comes a knock-back. A colleague called the Gazette newsdesk the other day to grumble about alleged bias in the selection of readers’ comments for printing on our weekly Feedback pages. ...
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Tendering work in politics
Let us not be hasty in condemning price-competitive tendering. It may not be the way forward for criminal defence services, but it could have useful application in other spheres, most obviously in the selection of politicians.
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Society targets ‘special relationship’ with US visit
Closer links between UK and US law firms were the focus of a Law Society visit to Washington DC last week.
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Sentencing
Imprisonment – Length of sentence – Defendants pleading guilty to number of terrorism offence R v Khan and others: Court of Appeal, Criminal Division: 16 April 2013 The Court of ...
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Wig or the wok?
Congratulations to employment solicitor Larkin Cen, who made it through to last night’s final of MasterChef, despite a kitchen calamity in a previous episode in which his souffle crashed to the floor. Cen has been a solicitor for three years at Morgan Cole in Bristol. ...
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‘Overwhelming’ support for action as 400 barristers stay away from court
Crown court hearings across the north were disrupted today as over 400 barristers stayed away from court in the first incident of militant action against the government’s planned reforms to criminal legal aid. The all-day protest meeting followed a ballot of barristers on the northern circuit, ...
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New bar nursery open 7 till 7
A decades-old campaign to improve women’s representation at the higher levels of the bar bore fruit last week with the opening of a childcare facility in central London. The Bar Nursery, at West Smithfield, will offer childcare facilities at special rates for all members of the ...