All News articles – Page 1328
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News
Zimbabwe’s Mtetwa released unharmed
Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa has been freed on bail after more than a week in prison and a decade spent campaigning for the rule of law. She was accused of shouting at police officers and demanding to see a search warrant when police ...
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Shakespeare's play on words
Northampton solicitor Karen Shakespeare gets our search for apt merger names off to a good start. ‘If DR Solicitors (Guildford), Heald Solicitors (Milton Keynes) and Patient Lawyers (Irwin Mitchell’s clinical negligence section) ever got together it would be DR Heald Patient,’ she writes. And if Street Solicitors (Bridgnorth, Shropshire) signed ...
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Osborne imposes further £142m of cuts on MoJ
Chancellor George Osborne today imposed a further £142m of cuts on the Ministry of Justice, which will have to be implemented before the 2015 general election. The MoJ is one of the government departments required by Osborne’s budget to reduce its spending by 1% for the ...
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Changes to criminal law – part 2
On 1 September 2012 it became an offence under section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) for a person to trespass in a residential building by living or intending to live in the building when he knew or ought to have known that ...
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Fast-track for ‘lower-risk’ ABS applications
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has announced it will fast-track lower-risk applications for an alternative business structure licence. The authority has responded to criticism that the authorisation process takes too long with new guidance and a fresh approach to existing law firms. The ...
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Probate work helps Co-op ABS break even in year one
Co-operative Legal Services (CLS) made a small profit in its first year as an alternative business structure on a 12.8% increase in revenue, the Co-operative Group’s financial results published today reveal. CLS, established seven years ago, became one of the first ABSs in March last year ...
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Judicial appointments: random access
I am responding to a letter (Larissa Hutson, 4 March) concerning research being carried out to discover what attracts members of the legal profession to apply – or puts them off from applying – to be a judge. This work is being undertaken by the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) in ...
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Emergency declared after Blakemores falls
The Law Society last week set up a dedicated website to help solicitors and trainees worried about the viability of their firms, after radical changes to the legal services market claimed another high-profile casualty. On Monday, Gazette Online exclusively revealed that all 200-plus solicitors and ...
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LSC to reconsider ‘hacked’ legal aid contract tender
A Birmingham solicitor who lost out on a family legal aid contract after her online application was hacked has won a legal challenge to the Legal Services Commission’s refusal to reconsider her application. The High Court heard that Rifat Mushtaq, owner of Mushtaq & Co, had ...
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Apprenticeships ‘risk alienating international firms’
A leading City training specialist has warned that legal apprenticeships may be less appealing to the biggest corporate firms with overseas offices. Tony King, chair of the City of London Law Society training committee, said: ‘Internationally, the lack of a degree will raise issues with ...
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Explosive allegation
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. The words of psychedelic drug campaigner Timothy Leary (1920-96) were quoted by Bar Council chair Maura McGowan QC (pictured) at last week’s Law Society event to mark International Women’s Day. ...
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Strike disrupts courts service as another walkout is planned
Thousands of court workers across England and Wales today walked out on strike as the union began a three-month programme of action. Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union took industrial action to mark budget day after talks broke down over cuts to pay, pensions, ...
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Blakemores appeared to embody many qualities deemed essential for success
One Gazette contributor of portentous mien had this to say about Blakemores: ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’ It might appear tasteless to invoke Churchill’s famous quote in the ...
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A better approach to diversity
Larissa Hutson (4 March) states that one of the statutory responsibilities of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) is ‘to reach and encourage a wide range of applicants to properly reflect the full diversity of the profession’. The fact that the judiciary does not properly reflect the diversity of the legal ...
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EU’s struggle with the law around pornography
by Nichi Hodgson, a regular commentator on sexual politics and the law The EU may have successfully banned fish dumping and incandescent light bulbs but porn, it seems, is safe – at least for now.
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Insurers blamed for blocking Atteys sale
The interim manager handling the wind-down of Yorkshire firm Atteys has alleged that the successor practice rules (SPR) allowed ‘the professional indemnity insurance (PII) tail to wag the profession’s dog’. The SPR ensure insurance is in place to cover claims against firms that no longer exist, ...
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Legal education: bespoke courses
News that Oxford Brookes University is discontinuing its legal practice course (LPC) because a drop in applications means it is no longer viable has sent a shock wave through the legal education market, as we await publication of the much-anticipated Legal Education and Training Review (LETR).
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Leveson haunts crime bill
The House of Commons is to vote today (18 March) on amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill that would implement the Leveson proposals on press regulation in conjunction with a royal charter. The vote follows the prime minister’s announcement last week that the Conservatives were ...
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Blakemores chief hits out at regulator over shock closure
The managing partner of failed Midlands firm Blakemores accused the Solicitors Regulation Authority of intervening in the firm at the worst possible time last Monday, when the firm was shut down and over 200 solicitors and employees dismissed. But the regulator rebutted Guy Barnett’s claim, ...
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Budget fallout: running into a brick wall
Watching the fallout from every budget is like being transported into the Truman Show. Everyone says the same thing, moves in the same direction and ends up just where they started. Perhaps George Osborne’s tortured economic recovery will end, like Truman, running into a brick wall ...