All News articles – Page 1453
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News
Spectres at the feast
When you’re amid like-minded souls in the comforting surroundings of the Inner Temple’s Grand Hall, it’s easy to feel invincible. Especially when there’s nearly unlimited wine flowing (thank you the Nuffield Foundation). So it was something akin to a victory rally last week when the ...
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Revised FIT hit in solar plexus
Government plans to amend the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) scheme were torpedoed again on 25 January, this time by the Court of Appeal. The scheme had already taken a first instance hit before Christmas with the judgment of Mitting J. However, following the Court of Appeal’s judgment, and while former energy ...
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Further reforms to the NCBC
My recent article dealt with the Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) Rules 2011 (SI 2011/3013) which came into force on 19 March 2012. These rules, together with practice direction (PD) changes in update 58, dealt with the necessary procedural changes caused by the establishment of the National Civil Business Centre ...
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Sports law: rules of the game
The complex web of commercial and regulatory issues that surrounds sport is occupying an ever-increasing amount of lawyers’ time. That was evident at the Law Society’s Sports Law Conference, held at Chancery Lane last week. It may be true that, as Charles Russell partner Simon Johnson told the conference, ‘a ...
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Green leases
Last year I took part in a debate on sustainable, or ‘green’ leases, at one of the events organised at the Law Society by Pamela Castle OBE, chair of the National Centre for Biorenewable Energy, Fuels and Materials. It brought together scientists, lawyers and policy makers in public debate. Also ...
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Tip of the iceberg
I couldn’t agree more with the letter ‘Passing the buck’ from Howard Shelley. However, what Mr Shelley identifies is only the tip of the iceberg. I am currently researching the accident compensation process for road traffic accidents with a value of £10k, as part of a ...
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Immigration
Appeal - Deportation - Appeal against deportation on national security grounds W (Algeria) and another v Secretary of State for the Home Department; PP (Algeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department; Z (Algeria) and others v ...
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Intellectual property
European Communities - Database rights - Infringement Football Dataco Ltd and other companies v Yahoo! UK Ltd and others: Court of Justice of the European Communities (Third Chamber) (Judges Lenaerts (Rapporteur), president of the Chamber, Malenovský, Juhász, Arestis and ...
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'One-size' Jackson-style reforms wrong, Scots told
Scottish legislators have been warned not to simply ‘bolt on’ reforms from south of the border in their Jackson-style review of civil litigation. A public consultation closed last Friday on an 18-month review of the Scottish civil litigation system being carried out by Sheriff Principal ...
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Secrets and lies
One might have thought that the proposal for ‘secret trials’ reported in last week’s Law Society Gazette would have prompted something rather stronger than the article which appeared in the 8 March issue.
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Taking the PI
Toilet humour is not usually welcome at any time but it got a laugh on this occasion. As the men queued during a break in Wednesday’s Claims Management Conference in Manchester, one moaned about the length of the line. ‘Give it a year and there’ll be ...
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Outrage at £2.60 wage proposal for trainees
Trainee solicitors could be paid as little as £2.60 an hour in their first year under an amendment to the Solicitors Regulation Authority's proposals for ending the minimum wage. The Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) today condemned the move as another step towards making the legal profession the ‘preserve ...
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News
Lukewarm reaction to Osborne's £20bn loan scheme
The legal sector has given a tepid welcome to the £20bn low-interest loan scheme announced by the chancellor in the runup to this week’s budget. William Arthur, consultant at professional services consultancy Kerma Partners, said: ‘There is no sense of a pent-up and unsatisfied demand ...
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Lawyers condemn budget’s £20m legal funding gesture
Chancellor George Osborne today promised £20m a year in new funding for the not-for-profit advice sector over the next two years. The sum was immediately and widely condemned as being not enough to replace shortfalls left by spending cuts. The announcement, in today’s budget, makes available ...
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Should lawyers welcome the end of the 50p tax rate?
There will be plenty of Gazette readers who do not benefit from the scrapping of the 50p rate of income tax on earnings over £150,000 - though a decade spent covering the City and corporate parts of the legal market means I know very great numbers who are set to ...
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Advocacy quality scheme deal ‘imminent’
An announcement to break the deadlock over the controversial quality assurance scheme for advocates (QASA) is ‘imminent’, the director of the Bar Standards Board said yesterday.