All News articles – Page 1350
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News
Bermuda calling
The regulatory telecommunications framework in Bermuda is currently in the process of root-and-branch reform heralded by the establishment of a regulatory authority pursuant to the Regulatory Authority Act 2011 and continued by the bringing into force of the relevant sections of the Electronic Communications Act 2011. Coupled with this reform, ...
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Reform chief predicts 'sweaty palms' over costs budgets
Judges and lawyers will adapt to new costs management rules but the process may take some time, according to the senior judge charged with implementing the Jackson reforms. Lord Justice Ramsey, who has taken over responsibility for the task from Lord Justice Jackson, admitted there will ...
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No magic bullet cure for cancer
Having studied Lord Saatchi’s draft Medical Innovation Bill, I was pleased with Robert Illidge’s thoughtful perspective. As a retired NHS consultant and an expert witness with experience of medical negligence from both sides (and at the risk of becoming frightfully unpopular), I would suggest that entrusting only the medical profession, ...
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Business leaders have grown ‘diversity weary’
Managers of leading professional firms are growing ‘diversity weary’, according to the organisers of a poll of business leaders. Research commissioned by City firm Reed Smith found concerns that ‘a flurry’ of initiatives to encourage more women into senior roles could lead to a backlash. ...
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Taxi for the cab rank rule
The barristers’ cab rank rule is ‘redundant’ and should be abolished, according to a report published today by the Legal Services Board. Authors Professor John Flood and Professor Morten Hviid suggest that the rule is ‘regularly breached’, and serves ‘no clear purpose’. They claim its ...
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Care home fees
Not care home fees, but tensions between Henry II and his archbishop led a character in TS Eliot’s Murder In The Cathedral to ask: ‘What peace can be found/To grow between the hammer and the anvil?’ But while a dispute over Newcastle City Council’s approach to care home fees has ...
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Relocation of children
When ferries were the only means of travelling abroad a national newspaper carried the headline: ‘Fog in Channel; Continent Cut Off’. Travel may be easier today, but there remains a legal obstruction to some parents’ departure from these shores. F (Child) [2012] EWCA Civ 1364 is the Court of Appeal’s ...
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COLP cover-up is unforgivable – and that’s the truth
Cards on the table - we’ve all told the odd porkie on an application form. You might add an inch or two to your height on a dating website or fake an interest in the theatre for a job application. I am not immune, dear readers, ...
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‘Common sense’ fraud ruling lauded
The Court of Appeal’s ruling that a solicitor was not liable for a building society’s losses after being duped by a fraudster has been hailed as a ‘return to common sense’. Birmingham firm Davisons was instructed by Nationwide to act in respect of the purchase of ...
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What is to be done over convention?
My father – in my mind because, aged 93, he has just died – used to take me to rugby internationals at Murrayfield in the 1960s. These were dominated by much kicking for positional advantage. Games were, depending on your point of vantage, fascinatingly tactical or grindingly boring. That experience ...
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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 ...
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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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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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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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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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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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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 ...