All News articles – Page 1495
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News
Coalition to lobby Lords on referral fees
A coalition of insurers and lawyers is to lobby for tougher measures banning referral fees. The Civil Justice Group aims to promote a private member’s bill introduced by the former justice secretary, Jack Straw, which would make paying or receiving referral fees a criminal offence. A ...
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Coffin up for death
Here’s some news to cheer up our probate colleagues. Naturally, it concerns death and taxes. The Trouble with Dying, Sun Life Direct’s annual survey into the cost of dying, has concluded that the average final bill for joining the choir invisible has risen by £436 to £7,248 over the past ...
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Supreme Court’s ruling on cohabitees welcomed
Family lawyers have welcomed the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment on the division of assets between former cohabiting couples - but say the case highlights the need for law reform. The long-awaited judgment in Jones v Kernott concerns beneficial interest in property where the legal ...
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How confidential?
We all know that confidentiality is the bedrock of a solicitor’s duty to his client. But how many conveyancing solicitors freely discuss their client’s business on the telephone with the selling agents of other parties, solicitors not connected with the client’s own transaction? And how ...
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Damage limitation
In Co-operative Group (CWS) Ltd v Pritchard [2011] EWCA Civ 329, [2011] All ER(D) 312 (Mar), the Court of Appeal considered whether contributory negligence could be raised as a defence to a claim for damages for the torts of assault and battery.
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‘Long way to go’ on diversity, warn lawyers
The legal profession’s progress towards diversity may be about to falter, lawyers warned at this week’s launch of the Black Solicitors Network’s sixth annual Diversity League Table. They warned that women and black and minority ethnic (BME) lawyers remain under-represented in the higher echelons of the ...
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Fiduciary duty revisited: I’m unlawful - strike me down!
American comedian Bob Newhart (famous for his monologue sketches) imagined Sir Walter Raleigh as a salesman phoning base about his discovery of tobacco. The response to Sir Walter was not, however, encouraging: ‘I think you’re gonna have rather a tough time selling people on sticking burning leaves in their mouths… ...
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End of the line for Solicitors From Hell
The founder of the controversial Solicitors from Hell website has finally admitted defeat after the High Court ordered him to remove the site from the internet. Rick Kordowski said he will bow out from what he described as a ‘campaign to expose apparent wrong-doing’ in the legal profession. ...
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Referral-fee refusenik enters PI market
A new law firm has entered the personal injury market promising neither to pay nor charge referral fees. Acorn Law, backed financially by national firm MTA Solicitors, says it is the first to be set up since the government announced plans to ban referral fees in ...
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Extradition
Extradition hearing - European Arrest Warrant - Extradition Act 2003 Assange v Swedish Judicial Authority: QBD (Divisional Court) (Sir John Thomas (president), Mr Justice Ouseley): 2 November 2011 The appellant ...
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Is the government’s preference for ‘industry-led’ solutions tipping the scales in insurers' favour?
The relationship between the insurance industry and government has hit the headlines in recent weeks, with justice minister Jonathan Djanogly facing claims that his personal insurance investments could lead him to profit from the government’s own legislation implementing the Jackson reforms. The minister pointed out that he published the investments ...
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Steamy get-together
Manchester-based personal injury firm Express Solicitors sent us this tender memento of a steamy get-together to mark the promotion of Sharon Denby, Margaret Bailey-Tsavalas and Rachel Flannigan to partnership. We’re not sure of the train of thought behind the shot, but we’re chuffed for them ...
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Off to the gulag
It was suggested following the summer riots that teachers should be given more power to discipline pupils. This reminded me of the late magistrate David Fingleton, who liked to say that since the death of Sir Robin Day he was now the rudest member of the Garrick.
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Jargon is not new
For those readers who rail at the gobbledegook that often seems to inhabit modern legislation and yearn for the golden age of law, when statutes were brief and drawn with clarity and care, here is an extract from a 1935 case (Wickhambrook PCC v Croxford) grappling with section 2.3 of ...
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Summary Judgment
Solicitor - Undertaking - Claimant company seeking to finance purchase of ship Global Marine Drillships Ltd v Landmark Solicitors LLP and others: Chancery Division (Mr Justice Henderson): 24 October 2011 ...
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One-sided review
I read with interest the article by Joshua Rozenberg, and the letters from David Bermingham and Jago Russell.