All News articles – Page 1399
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News
Justice and Shakespeare
I’m thinking about William Shakespeare today - after all, it is his birthday. I realise that many fellow English-folk are more focused on a Third Century Roman Soldier from the Middle East who never visited our shores but, well - I’ll leave them to their chargrilled dragon vol-au-vents, or however ...
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The right kind of feedback
This week in a gap between seeing clients I went to buy a light bulb for my car. I had noticed I had not been very bright (if you see what I mean). It is the sort of thing you usually never get around to sort out. Buying a new ...
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An overview of the EU’s week
I try in this blog to describe weekly European news affecting the legal profession. Although I don’t expect sympathy, it can be a head-scratching challenge, since there are not always weekly developments on tap. Policy-makers receive daily updates of EU news, and I scan the headlines ...
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Consumers ‘in the dark’ on CMC practices
A quarter of consumers are not aware that claims management companies (CMCs) take a cut of their mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) claim, a survey has revealed. The joint survey by consumer watchdog Which? and MoneySavingExpert.com found that claimants were unaware of their rights and the ...
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Will-writing must become reserved activity, LSB says
Proposals to regulate all providers of will-writing and estate administration come a step closer today as the Legal Services Board confirms plans to make the services ‘reserved activities’. Under proposals published today, designed to provide greater consumer protection, all providers of such services would be regulated. ...
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Plant: firms 'deluded' to think ABSs won't have impact
A regulation chief has warned the UK’s biggest commercial firms that they are ‘deluded’ to think alternative business structures will not affect them. Solicitors Regulation Authority chairman Charles Plant told the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers conference on Friday that no firm could assume they ...
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Time to make for the high ground
Let’s cut to the chase: the best part about conferences is the freebies. Solicitors suddenly turn into scavengers when there’s a free pen or teddy bear in sight, walking away from the venue looking like some wildly unambitious looter. One thing’s for sure, there were be ...
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Stating the obvious
Here’s a worthwhile research project: what would you do with £12m? A vineyard in France, with an Aston Martin in the garage? Or would you spend it on a piece of research that concludes, surely to nobody’s surprise, that the law is not the best instrument to settle disputes about ...
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Brighton: we never sought seismic change, says Grieve
The UK government’s Brighton declaration on the future of Europe’s human rights court never set out to achieve ‘seismic’ change, but was more than mere political window-dressing, attorney general Dominic Grieve told the Gazette this morning. He said that ‘seismic’ change was not required because the ...
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Negligence
Highway - Duty of highway authority AC and others v TR and another: Queen's Bench Division (Mrs Justice Slade DBE): 29 March 2012 In considering the circumstances of a road ...
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Musical truth
What a bunch of old rockers Gazette readers turned out to be. Obiter’s plea for songs to accompany Gazette news stories evidently had a few of you thumbing through your vinyl collections.
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The scope of legal professional privilege
The question before Mr Justice Akenhead in Walter Lilly & Company Ltd v Mackay and another [2012] EWHC 649 (TCC) was this: does legal professional privilege (LPP) attract to documents produced by a claims consultant, even one which retains legally qualified personnel?
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Taxing issues
I refer to Robert Forman’s piece about the political stance taken by the Solicitors Regulation Authority over Stamp Duty Land Tax schemes.
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Inheritance
Inheritance rights - Statutory next of kin - Adopted children - Human rights Re Erskine Trust, Gregg and another v Pigott and others: ChD (Mr Mark Herbert QC (sitting as a deputy judge of the Chancery Division)): 29 March ...
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‘Impossible’ practice
Richard Chapman writes persuasively about the role of solicitors giving assistance to self-represented litigants. I am sure that if it were just a matter of helping a professional colleague, many would be happy to oblige. The matter is, however, deeper than that. These problems are arising ...
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Solicitors 'refuse to give journalists their names'
A leading court reporting agency says increasing numbers of solicitors are refusing to give their full name to journalists when appearing in court. Guy Toyn, news editor at Central News, told the Gazette that up to one in every 20 solicitors his reporters comes across asks ...
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Fees and LDPs
I write in response to the letter ‘Raw deal for LDPs?’, concerning the process of passporting to an alternative business structure. To clarify, there is no fee for a non-lawyer manager LDP which elects to transition to the ABS regime ahead of the transition period (which the author is correct ...
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Insight for sore eyes
It’s getting on for two years since the government launched its crackdown on local authority newspapers. Communities minister Eric Pickles (pictured) declared war on what he described as ‘town hall Pravdas’ wasting taxpayers’ money and time. The campaign has long since died a death, hardly surprising ...