All News articles – Page 1596
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News
Dishing it out in court
When home secretary Theresa May recently indicated that anti-social behaviour orders could soon be deemed anti-social by the new government, Obiter put out a request to the profession for first-hand experience of unusual asbos. We received an intriguing response from a prosecutor in the north of England, revealing a fascinating, ...
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Government cuts must not undermine the constitution
Forget for a moment the row over legal aid tendering – that is nothing compared with what is to come. Judicial review may be an appropriate response to a contracting cock-up, but how do we, as individual solicitors and as a profession, respond to the cuts that are to come?
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Client protection
I read with interest, and a degree of optimism, Charles Fuchter’s article entitled The SRA must amend the Code of Conduct or law firms will close on the Gazette website. Mr Fuchter’s comment that ‘mortgage lenders would be required, in effect, to contribute to the ...
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Civil procedure
Corporation tax – Costs – Group relief Revenue & Customs Commissioners v Marks & Spencer Plc: ChD (Mr Justice Warren): 27 August 2010 The court was required to determine outstanding ...
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Solicitor charged with theft
A Lincolnshire solicitor has been charged with stealing over a quarter of a million pounds from her former clients. Jacquelina Laverick, who practised under the name Jacqui Johns, appeared at Grantham Magistrates’ Court last week charged with 11 offences of theft totalling more than £250,000, and ...
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Law firms reduce carbon footprint
Legal services is among the UK’s most successful business sector for reducing carbon emissions, a report released today reveals. The report, from HRH the Prince of Wales’ Mayday Network, a group of 2,862 companies working towards a sustainable future, found that network constituents had together reduced ...
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Personal injury interest calculation tables
The standard rate of interest on general damages for pain and suffering and loss of amenities in personal injury cases was fixed at 2% a year by the House of Lords in Birkett v Hayes [1982] 1 WLR 816; [1982] 2 All ER 70). This was confirmed as appropriate by ...
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Mobile phones, bonds and healthcare
End of the line: Magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised mobile phone group Vodafone on selling its $6.6bn (£4.3bn) stake in China Mobile. Freshfields also advised the board of Anglo Irish Bank on its break-up at the behest of the Irish government, ...
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Firms must inform clients of new complaints body
Solicitors will be obliged to inform clients that the Legal Complaints Service has been replaced by the Legal Ombudsman (LeO), following a rule change approved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority at its board meeting today. The SRA said it had been forced to introduce the rule ...
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New human rights body must be independent, says Law Society
The Law Society has welcomed foreign secretary William Hague’s decision to create an advisory body of independent human rights experts that will not be influenced by other policy considerations. Hague’s group will draw on the advice of key NGOs, independent experts and others. The aim is ...
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Blue language
Gazette wrists are still smarting from the firm slap administered by solicitor Mrs K A Jordan, a partner at Leeds firm Blacks, in relation to a recent news item. The story, about legal executives and will-writers potentially being given new probate rights by ...
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Lord Bingham – lawyers pay tribute
Tributes have been paid to Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the ‘most respected, distinguished and admired judge of our times’, who died at his home in Wales on 11 September, aged 76.
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Best dressed
It could be time to dust off the gladrags this autumn. A group of 60 College of Law students have been busy organising a ‘full length and fabulous’ event to take place at the luxurious Waldorf Hilton Hotel in London on 2 October, in aid of Breakthrough Breast Cancer. As ...
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The changing relationship between solicitors and barristers
In the debate about how the legal regulators should amend practising rules to allow solicitors and barristers to operate in the new structures modelled in the Legal Services Act 2007, some predicted that the reforms could alter forever the identity of lawyers and lead to fusion – ending the distinction ...
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Law firms fear school panel axe
Seventeen law firms signed up to advise local authorities on the Labour government’s lucrative school building project will soon learn whether or not their legal panel is to be scrapped. The Department for Education (DfE)’s £55bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project was abolished ...
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Lawyers must argue from the moral high ground if they are to be heard
The TUC conference has achieved limited traction with the media since Margaret Thatcher cowed organised labour by defeating the miners a quarter of a century ago. Not so this year. In approving a coordinated campaign of political and industrial action, the TUC has signalled that the coalition is – after ...
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Akzo Nobel ruling a ‘missed opportunity’ say lawyers
Lawyers expressed dismay this week at a European Court of Justice ruling that legal professional privilege does not apply to legal advice given by in-house lawyers in EU competition law investigations. Ruling in the Akzo Nobel case, the ECJ said that in-house lawyers were not independent ...
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What the landmark Akzo Nobel ruling means for in-house lawyers
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) this week ruled in the Akzo Nobel and Akcros Chemicals appeals that, under EU law, legal professional privilege does not extend to employed in-house lawyers, thereby confirming existing case law. In 2003, the European Commission and the Office of Fair ...
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Army cuts could hit support for Afghan operations
The defence spending and security review will result in cuts of at least 25% in the numbers of lawyers in the Army and Royal Air Force, the Gazette understands. The cuts will include lawyers who advise frontline troops and commanders on compliance with the Geneva ...
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Freedom of Information Act and exemptions to the rule
There is no single FoI exemption which covers such reports, and often they will be disclosable in their entirety because they will contain no specific information about surveillance operations. However, where this is the case, or the request is for wider information about surveillance activity, the section 31 exemption (law ...