All News articles – Page 1360

  • News

    SRA ditches online roll list

    2012-08-08T00:00:00Z

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority has abandoned its online system for maintaining a list of solicitors who want to stay on the roll, costing it hundreds of thousands of pounds in lost fees. There are around 35,000 qualified solicitors who do not have practising certificates, but who ...

  • News

    Chancery Lane’s Olympic Gold

    2012-08-08T00:00:00Z

    Obiter is removing a hat to cheer double Olympic medal winner and Law Society member of staff William Styles (pictured). Styles won a gold and a silver. And he has already got his own Wikipedia entry.

  • News

    Benefit fraud: claim/review forms

    2012-08-08T00:00:00Z

    This is the second of four articles prompted by the case of Coventry City Council v Vassel 2011 EWHC 1542 Admin. In particular, it looks at mens rea and the difficulties that arise when local authorities fail to give adequate information to benefit claimants on how to notify a change ...

  • News

    Banks could not accept the financial products market was saturated

    2012-08-08T00:00:00Z

    Disputes over interest rate hedging (derivatives) products sold by banks are in the news again this week – this time US state and local governments are looking at whether the products were ‘mis-sold’ and whether they have a case. Closer to home, as predicted by UK lawyers I spoke to ...

  • News

    Helena Kennedy QC to co-chair IBAHRI

    2012-08-07T00:00:00Z

    The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) has announced that Lady Helena Kennedy QC will become its first female co-chair. The peer and former barrister will join existing co-chair Sternford Moyo, the former president of the Zimbabwe Law Society, to lead the IBAHRI Council. ...

  • News

    Professor Gus John to carry out SRA racism review

    2012-08-07T00:00:00Z

    Professor Gus John is to carry out an independent comparative case review to determine if there is any evidence of racism in the way the Solicitors Regulation Authority investigates black and minority ethnic (BME) solicitors.

  • News

    Partners block promotion prospects

    2012-08-07T00:00:00Z

    One in three solicitors in private practice blames their ‘stifled’ career progression on increased competition from their peers combined with fewer partners retiring, a survey has revealed. The survey of more than 200 private practice solicitors, published today by recruiters Laurence Simons, quoted Law Society ...

  • News

    Should funders bring collective actions?

    2012-08-07T00:00:00Z

    As the government closed its consultation on collective actions in competition law cases at the end of last month, there was an outcry from business groups warning against the plans. Among the critics were the CBI, and our old friends the Institute of Legal Reform ...

  • News

    Government wrong to make graduate stack shelves, High Court rules

    2012-08-06T00:00:00Z

    The government was wrong to require a graduate to leave her internship in a museum to stack shelves in a high street shop, a high court judge ruled today. However, the government had not breached her human right to protection from slavery and forced labour, the ...

  • News

    DPAs must be transparent, Chancery Lane warns

    2012-08-06T00:00:00Z

    Deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) could improve the way economic crime committed by commercial organisations is dealt with, but the process must be transparent to retain public confidence, the Law Society has said.

  • News

    DPAs must be transparent, Chancery Lane warns

    2012-08-06T00:00:00Z

    Deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) could improve the way economic crime committed by commercial organisations is dealt with, but the process must be transparent to retain public confidence, the Law Society has said.

  • News

    Justice reforms have increased burden on judiciary, says LCJ

    2012-08-06T00:00:00Z

    Reforms to the efficiency of the administration of justice have increased the burdens on the judiciary at a time when their pay and pension packages are being cut, according to a report from the lord chief justice, Igor Judge.

  • News

    Why attend an ABA meeting?

    2012-08-06T00:00:00Z

    I am at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in Chicago.

  • News

    SRA licenses 15th ABS

    2012-08-06T00:00:00Z

    Seven-partner Gloucestershire high street firm Langley Wellington has become the 15th alternative business structure to be licensed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority since licensing began in March 2012. It joins firms ranging in size from Kent sole practitioner Lawbridge to Co-operative Legal Services, with plans to ...

  • News

    The Briefs and criminal law – it’s a numbers game

    2012-08-03T00:00:00Z

    Those of you able to tear yourself away from the Olympics last night might have caught the first of a two-part behind-the-scenes documentary about the lawyers and clients at the Manchester office of Tuckers. The Briefs was made by Chameleon Television, which spent a year with ...

  • News

    Accused silk in court on VAT fraud charge

    2012-08-03T00:00:00Z

    A London silk has appeared in court charged with a £600,000 VAT fraud. Rohan Anthony Pershad QC, who practised from Thirty Nine Essex Street, was summoned to appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

  • News

    New ABSs critical of application process

    2012-08-03T00:00:00Z

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority has too few resources to handle the licensing of alternative business structures (ABSs) and should ‘triple in size or work 24 hours a day,’ the senior partner of one of the four firms licensed this week told the Gazette. The four new ...

  • News

    Shipping

    2012-08-02T00:00:00Z

    Charterparty - Breach by owner Taokas Navigation SA v Komrowski Bulk Shipping KG (GmbH & Co) and other companies: QBD (Comm) (Mr Justice Teare): 11 July 2012 The instant appeal ...

  • News

    Memory lane

    2012-08-02T00:00:00Z

    Law Society’s Gazette, August 1942 Solicitor’s exploit When Tobruk was invested by the enemy, two British officers made a most daring escape. Driving out from the Tobruk perimeter in a motor vehicle, they joined an enemy troop convoy. German and Italian soldiers ...

  • News

    Police investigation

    2012-08-02T00:00:00Z

    I cannot believe the police are right to tell Angela Neale that they will not investigate an apparent conveyancing fraud unless the potential victim (the prospective buyer) complained. The police have a duty to investigate crime whenever it is brought to their attention. The John ...