All News articles – Page 1480
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News
Commercial need
I wonder whether solicitors like your correspondent Franklin Sinclair have considered that, in the long run, they might do their clients, including the most vulnerable, more good by refusing to carry out large amounts of unpaid work for the benefit of an ungrateful taxpayer, than by flogging themselves to death ...
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SRA to consider dropping minimum wage for trainees
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to consult on whether to continue to set minimum pay rates for trainees. Current minimum salary levels for solicitors are £18,590 in central London and £16,650 outside, and have been frozen for the past two years. However the SRA board decided ...
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Habeas corpus
Jurisdiction - Prisoner of war - Claimant Pakistani national being captured by British forces in Iraq Rahmatullah v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and another: CA (Civ Div) (Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger, Lord Justices ...
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In defiance of logic
Supreme Court justice-elect Jonathan Sumption QC may be of a dazzlingly high intellectual calibre with a heady penchant for the Hundred Years War but, as Roger Smith intimates, is he so subjective in his view of the role of the state in modern Britain that he is willing to regularly ...
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Employment
Unfair dismissal - Constructive dismissal - Damages - Two appeals being heard together Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Botham v Ministry of Defence (Lords Phillips P, Walker, Mance, Kerr, Dyson and Wilson, Lady Hale): Supreme Court: ...
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Focus on justice, not social engineering
Is racism now worse than murder? A few weeks ago I heard about a couple of cases which, if accurately reported, gave me great concern about the politicised nature of our criminal justice system. It was reported that there had recently been an instance where family ...
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Environment
Protection - Pollution - Air pollution - European directive requiring reduction in emissions R (on the application of Clientearth) v Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: QBD (Admin) (Mr Justice Mitting (judgment delivered extempore)): 13 December ...
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Solicitor jailed for money laundering
A solicitor has been jailed for 12 months for money laundering, perverting the course of justice and prejudicing a money laundering investigation. Nicholas Heywood, 45, of High Bank Lane, Bolton, was sentenced at Chester Crown Court (pictured) on 11 January for facilitating the laundering of money ...
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Law Society wary on shared parenting possibility
The Law Society’s family law committee has cautioned against introducing a legal presumption of shared parenting after divorce, following indications that the government may seek to change the law. Children’s minister Tim Loughton has said that the government is ‘looking closely at all the options ...
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Matter of opinion
The City of London Law Society has issued a useful Guide to assist practitioners in providing English law opinion letters in financial transactions. The aim of the Guide (available at the website) is to save time and costs spent in discussing which law firm should provide an opinion letter, what ...
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Proposed procedures are misguided
Government moves that would further undermine open justice have been attacked by the very lawyers on whom ministers rely to support the existing system of closed courts. It’s a major setback for the security service, which persuaded justice secretary Kenneth Clarke to endorse the reforms in a green paper on ...
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Right prescription for public respect
We are all familiar with some of the well-known pejorative words and phrases used about lawyers in general and solicitors in particular. We have spent years and probably many millions of pounds trying to improve our public image using PR firms and proposals. I wish to float an idea which ...
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An obscene waste of money?
You might not want your wife and servants to watch them, but a jury at Southwark Crown Court has just decided that DVDs showing fisting and other hard core male-on-male sex action are not obscene under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. The failed prosecution arose in ...
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Can CFAs replace legal aid?
As housing and other social welfare lawyers face the prospect of legal aid being withdrawn from their sector under the government’s reforms, many are looking at whether their practice could adapt to operate under ‘no win, no fee’ agreements instead.
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Londoners will fare worst from legal aid cuts - survey
Londoners will be hit hardest by the government’s planned legal aid cuts, a survey published by the Legal Action Group (LAG) has found. It has calculated that the capital will lose £9.33m under the proposed reforms in funding for housing, employment, debt, welfare benefits and immigration ...