All News articles – Page 1588
-
News
Lord Young declines meeting with profession’s regulator
Lord Young of Graffham turned down an offer to meet with the solicitors’ regulator in advance of his report on health and safety and the ‘compensation culture’, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said. ...
-
News
House price fall could prove fillip for conveyancers
Conveyancing solicitors moved to calm concerns over a looming housing crash this week, and suggested that a fall in house prices could have a ‘silver lining’ for the profession. Last week, the Halifax reported a 3.6% decline in house prices in September, the biggest monthly fall ...
-
News
High Court defamation claims soar
The number of High Court defamation claims has risen to the highest level since the Woolf reforms, figures have shown. Defamation claims in the High Court rose to 298 last year, up 15% from 259 in 2008, according to an analysis of judicial statistics carried out ...
-
News
Sadiq Khan named as shadow lord chancellor
Former human rights solicitor Sadiq Khan was today named shadow lord chancellor, as new Labour leader Ed Miliband assembled his first shadow cabinet. Khan, who was a partner at London human rights firm Christian Khan before standing as Labour candidate for Tooting in the 2005 general ...
-
News
The lie behind the money laundering legislation
I am a regular listener to Radio 4’s Any Questions programme, and always wonder about those panellists who are greeted by a round of applause after their contribution. What must it feel like? Well, now I know. Last week, I was in Vancouver for the International Bar Association’s annual conference. ...
-
News
Political Risk?
Kenneth Clarke’s speech to the Birmingham Law Society and Lord Young’s pronouncements at the weekend remind me that the political risk issues I learnt about at business school are alive, well and threatening further disruption.
-
News
Political risk?
Kenneth Clarke’s speech to the Birmingham Law Society and Lord Young’s pronouncements at the weekend remind me that the political risk issues I learnt about at business school are alive, well and threatening further disruption.
-
News
SRA closes Burges Salmon investigation
South-west firm Burges Salmon will not face the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal following allegations that it gave inappropriate legal advice to farmers, a long-running investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has decided. The SRA, which for two years considered allegations about advice given by Burges Salmon to ...
-
News
Is Lord Young being too harsh on personal injury lawyers?
No personal injury lawyer enjoys being called an ‘ambulance chaser’, even if, on occasion, they slip a business card into the bloodied hand of a car crash victim. Such a scene (fictional, I should add) was played out in a TV advertisement I saw last week ...
-
News
Sour smell of success
Pity Nigel Jones QC of Hardwicke, who has learnt the hard way how the British like to keep talent in its place. His mini-biog at the second Global Managing Partners Summit conference in London last week included a Legal 500 quote describing the barrister as ‘refreshingly in tune with business ...
-
News
Intestacy rules in need of updating
Nearly two-thirds of the public do not have a will, and a change in family relationships points to a need to amend the current intestacy rules, research has suggested. A report by the National Centre for Social Research, conducted to provide the Law Commission with up-to-date ...
-
News
Legal profession ‘inherently masculine’, says report for LSB
Stereotyping and bias are preventing women and black and minority ethnic (BME) solicitors from furthering their careers, a report funded by the Legal Services Board has found. The report by the University of Westminster claimed that the profession is ‘segmented and stratified’ along the lines of ...
-
News
Policestationreps sees threefold increase in lawyers using website
A website set up to connect firms doing criminal defence work with accredited police station representatives has reported a threefold increase in lawyers using the site, as solicitors face tightening profit margins. Policestationreps.com provides solicitors with the contact details of local police station representatives so that ...
-
News
French toast
Obiter raises a glass to personal injury solicitor James Wood for recently becoming the first man with an injured spinal cord to swim the English Channel. Wood, whose spine was broken in a road accident in 1990, causing him to lose the use ...
-
News
Moses stars in epic
Court three of the Royal Courts of Justice was packed out for the result of the Law Society’s challenge to the family legal aid tender last week. But the press pack became somewhat disconcerted when they learned that the court’s stenographers had been engaged for the next four hours. Four ...
-
News
Law firms face obstacles as they seek to exploit emerging markets
As developed countries continue to wrestle with their recession-hit economies, most savvy international law firms are turning their attention to emerging markets, with BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), receiving particular interest.
-
News
Earn CPD points with the Gazette
Today sees the launch of Gazette CPD, through which you can gain up to 10 CPD hours by answering questions about our articles. Each month (excluding August and December), an assessment consisting of 15 questions based on four articles published in the previous month’s Gazette will ...
-
News
High Court family tender ruling was a victory for justice
At the start of my presidential year in what, I was assured, was the ‘quiet period’, I received two pieces of extremely bad news. The first was that many small firms were being removed from lenders’ panels, and the second was that the family law tender process had resulted in ...