All News articles – Page 1431
-
News
Taint of torture remains despite overlay of legal process
Let me begin with an outrageous position for any lawyer - let alone one who once specialised in criminal defence. I believe that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) is guilty of conspiracy to murder 2,977 people in, and over, the US on 11 September 2001. What is much more outrageous is ...
-
News
Great dictator
A veritable army of grave-looking gentlemen in grey suits fetched up at the Royal Festival Hall last week for Russell-Cooke’s solemn event ‘Enforcing Regulatory Standards in a Liberalised Market’. Appropriately, the profession’s über-regulator, Legal Services Board chair David Edmonds CBE, topped the bill.
-
News
Straw flogs
Ex-justice secretary Jack Straw has earned more than a few bob since leaving office, as we first reported last week. But lest you got the wrong impression, the Blackburn MP’s extra-parliamentary activities have not been limited to worthy (if perhaps a tad prosaic) appearances in the Lancashire mill towns. Oh ...
-
News
News focus: progress report on legal profession
The Law Society’s 28th Annual Statistical Report might appear to be a rather desiccated agglomeration of facts, tables and bar charts. It is not an avowedly political document and, for that reason, raises more questions than it answers. As a snapshot of changing trends in the profession, however, the survey ...
-
News
French stick
Obiter had never understood why a bar president in France is called ‘le batonnier’ or ‘stick-person’. Unless it’s a reference to a slightly bigger version of a baguette called a ‘baton’, but that seems unlikely. And then enlightenment dawned when he met the president of the Paris bar, Christiane Féral-Schuhl ...
-
News
Giving hard-up graduates hope
I have read the various exchanges, following the initial open letter on the Gazette website from the (clearly desperate) Legal Practice Course graduates. The issue, from my perspective, is not the minimum wage applicable to trainee solicitors, but more the lack of training contracts compared with the number of ‘qualifying’ ...
-
News
The joy of tech
Young Mr McVeighty should take heart and embrace a laptop. Ten years ago, I thought that I would be able to retire without touching a computer. I am now a converted enthusiast.
-
News
Judicial review
Evidence - Claimants seeking judicial review of decisions of defendant secretary of state refusing to grant naturalisation R (on the application of AHK and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: QBD (Admin) (Mr Justice Ouseley): 2 ...
-
News
Memory lane
Law Society’s Gazette, May 1982 Letters to the editor (There is a) widely held view that all solicitors, regardless of specialisation or geographical location, are ‘on the gravy train’. This view has been deliberately and successfully peddled for a number of years ...
-
News
Naive strategy
The government intends to clamp down on compensation claims arising from road traffic accidents. Apparently, the government regards solicitors as the ‘bad guys’ and insurers as the ‘good guys’.
-
News
Society ponders non-solicitor representation
Admission of non-solicitors to the Law Society has returned to the agenda following conference speeches by the president and his successor-but-one.
-
News
Solicitor, are you?
'Solicitor, are you? I 'ad one of them law commissioners in the back of my cab the other day. You'll never guess what those stupid baskets - pardon my French - are up to now? They’ve only gone and launched a consultation on taxi and private hire services.
-
News
Trainee minimum to be abolished in two years
Regulators have voted to scrap the trainee solicitor minimum wage 30 years after it was first introduced. The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority made the decision to deregulate the salary at its meeting today. Full deregulation will be deferred for two years to minimise the ...
-
News
SRA sells out aspiring trainees
Forget all the corporate blather about ‘partial deregulation’ - today the Solicitors Regulation Authority board chose to dump the minimum salary for trainee solicitors. It was a gutless, thoughtless and morally reprehensible decision, taken on flimsy grounds and with little or no debate. In passing on ...
-
News
Trainee minimum to stay, SRA board rules
Regulators have voted to retain the trainee solicitor minimum wage 30 years after it was first introduced. The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority made the decision to ignore calls for deregulation at its meeting today. The decision comes after a five-month consultation with the profession ...
-
News
VAT breaks and nepotism on menu as French lawyers seek reform
The newly elected president of France could scrap VAT on legal fees for certain consumers and abolish a ‘nepotistic’ decree passed by the previous administration, the president of the Paris bar has told the Gazette. Christiane Feral-Schuhl, in London to visit the Law Society, also told ...
-
News
HSBC deal ends conveyancing panel dispute
Hundreds more firms will be able to work for HSBC mortgage clients and the bank after the lender agreed this week to expand its conveyancing panel to include all firms with the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) mark. The deal, announced today, follows a four-month campaign by the Law ...
-
News
Wasted costs order over e-disclosure failures
When assessing litigation costs, the expense of collecting, analysing and reviewing information is a key consideration. Only by ensuring that these processes are completed accurately and efficiently can the cost of e-disclosure be effectively managed.
-
News
Is economics useless?
Is economics any use? That sounds like the start of a rant/ a joke/ or a quip in an after-dinner speech (all the easier to make as many economies, presumably advised by fine economic minds, struggle to recover and grow). So let me be more ...