All News articles – Page 1560
-
News
House calls
Justice secretary Ken Clarke and justice minister Jonathan Djanogly appeared in the House of Commons to answer MPs’ questions last week, in an apparently lively session.
-
News
Courtesy call
My partner graduated a year and a half ago from the College of Law with a distinction. As has been exhaustively publicised, the lack of trainee positions has been a major upset to many who graduated then and subsequently. I would like to comment on the lack of courtesy that ...
-
News
Twitter silence 'hurts brand'
Two-thirds of top-50 law firms have a Twitter account, but some may be 'damaging their brand’ by failing to actually tweet anything, a report has suggested. The study by web consultancy Intendance found that 66% of firms had set up at least one account on Twitter. ...
-
News
Time not called on hourly bills
The hourly billing model for law firms is still ‘largely intact’ and is too profitable for firms to be incentivised to move away from it, according to a leading professional services consultant. Maureen Broderick said her research indicated professional services firms and consultancies that operate in ...
-
News
How can trustees decide which investment vehicle is best?
The dramatic volatility of stock markets over the past decade has shaken investors’ belief in the traditional approaches to investment, and trustees are in danger of exposing their beneficiaries to undue risk by failing to review their portfolios. This article looks at two major investment vehicles which facilitate diversification – ...
-
News
Warming the bench for solicitors
by Frances Kirkham, a senior circuit judge and JAC commissioner Today, the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) and the Law Society have announced a joint plan to support more solicitors who wish to join the judiciary.
-
News
Scouting – social value and balancing risk
The Scout Association v Barnes [2010] EWCA Civ 1476 (Lord Justice Ward, Lady Justice Smith and Lord Justice Jackson) When 13 years of age, the claimant suffered injuries valued at £7,000 in an accident ...
-
News
A step back in time
After celebrating the achievements of 95-year-old solicitor Leslie Black last week, Obiter was delighted to hear from another ‘old timer’ – Geoffrey Rutter, partner at City firm Collyer Bristow – with a glimpse of what it was like to be a newly qualified solicitor in 1960. ...
-
News
Aspiring judges to get support
The Law Society and Judicial Appointments Commission [JAC] will today launch a joint plan to support solicitors who want to become judges, after an analysis of the appointment of solicitors as judges over the past 10 years.
-
News
Warning over 'regulatory ambush'
Lawyers could face a ‘regulatory ambush’ if a radical overhaul of the solicitors’ rulebook goes ahead without a ‘change in culture’ at the profession’s regulator, the Law Society has warned. In a response to the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s Architecture of Change consultation, which closed last week, ...
-
News
'Ambulance chasing' lawyers attacked
A government transport minister has attacked the ‘abhorrent’ practices of ‘ambulance chasing’ personal injury lawyers who deal with road traffic accident (RTA) cases. The Law Society has hit back at the claims. Giving evidence to the transport committee’s inquiry into the cost of motor insurance ...
-
News
LSC pledge on matter starts for legal aid work
The Legal Services Commission has begun allocating new matter starts for family legal aid work to firms on the basis of the amount they received last year, it said last week. Since the High Court ruling that quashed the outcome of the LSC’s family tender in ...
-
News
Solicitors support scrapping default retirement age
Scrapping the default retirement age (DRA) could benefit the economy by retaining ‘talented and skilled’ older employees and creating more jobs for more people, the Law Society has said. The government confirmed last week that from 1 October, employees who reach 65 years of age and ...
-
News
How more devolved powers in Wales could affect the law
Wales goes to the polls on 3 March to vote on whether the National Assembly’s law-making powers in the 20 devolved areas should be extended. It has already started building a body of law with a distinctive Welsh flavour, despite the tortuous process put in place in 2006 that requires ...
-
News
ABSs ‘won’t drive top firms south’
The Law Society of Scotland has voiced confidence that the nation’s biggest cross-border firms will remain domiciled in Edinburgh, even though they are expected to enjoy less freedom to restructure and raise investment than their English counterparts after the introduction of alternative business structures (ABSs).
-
News
Are the law’s Judaeo-Christian roots withering?
Peter and Hazel Bull are two devout Christians who, until a judge told them otherwise, sought to run their Cornwall hotel on principles they perceived to befit their religion. Judge Andrew Rutherford ruled that, under new equality laws, their policy of not allowing unmarried partners to share double rooms directly ...
-
News
Legal services reforms to ‘influence worldwide markets', says IBA
Full implementation of the Legal Services Act 2007 could ‘substantially influence’ legal markets around the world, according to the new president of the International Bar Association. Akira Kawamura (pictured), partner at Japanese firm Anderson Mori & Tomotsune, last week became the twenty-second IBA president and the ...
-
News
Tribunals Service reports rise in cases
The Tribunals Service received 220,400 new claims in the second quarter of last year, from 1 July to 30 September 2010, representing an 11% increase over the same period in 2009, the latest available statistics have revealed. However, the Service also increased the number of cases ...
-
News
House calls
Justice secretary Ken Clarke and justice minister Jonathan Djanogly appeared in the House of Commons to answer MPs’ questions last week, in an apparently lively session.
-
News
Resolve now to beat the January 2012 cashflow crunch
The date 31 January is usually a firm’s tightest cashflow point, with partners’ tax, a quarter’s VAT and quarter’s rent all payable within five weeks of each other in most cases. Exacerbated by the fact that cash in-flows are usually very quiet in December and January, firms often face a ...