All News articles – Page 1621
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News
EAT upholds victimisation claim
A firm that ‘gratuitously’ mentioned a solicitor’s previous discrimination claim against it when providing an employment reference to another firm has lost an appeal in the Employment Appeal Tribunal. Pothecary Witham Weld (PWW) lost the appeal in a case that has established that the reverse burden ...
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Civil procedure
Health – Judicial review – Jurisdiction – Interested parties R (on the application of McVey & Ors) (claimant) v Secretary of State for Health (defendant) & (1) Jonathan Simms (2) Holly Mills (interested parties): QBD (Admin) (Mr Justice Silber): ...
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Chancery Lane hails costs cap coup
Controversial rules to cap the costs recovered by acquitted defendants were struck down as ‘unlawful’ by the High Court in a victory for the Law Society this week. The regulations, which are now invalid, were introduced in October 2009 and sought to ensure that acquitted defendants ...
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Traditionalists v modernists: business dilemma for law firms
Last week, Chris Roebuck, in his interesting blog post on making change happen, stated that ‘legal firms face probably their toughest challenges for years’.
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Warning over CPS recruitment freeze and budget cut
A recruitment freeze at the Crown Prosecution Service and its latest budget cut will increase the burden on defence solicitors and the criminal justice system, lawyers warned this week. The Attorney General’s Office has said that the CPS must contribute an additional £16m of savings. This ...
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Life's a beach
Has Baywatch returned to our screens once more? Not exactly. Although the plotline could be said to be equally implausible. Durham firm Swinburne Maddison entered two teams in the Castles Challenge Triathlon earlier this month: Team Old (Terry Lee, 45 [pictured, nearest runner], John Davison, 52, and Jonathan Moreland, 42) ...
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BSB chair: 'merge solicitors' and barristers' training courses'
The chair of the bar’s regulator has called for a radical overhaul of legal professional education by merging the solicitors’ and barristers’ courses, to give young people longer to decide which branch of the profession they want to join. Bar Standards Board chair Lady Deech ...
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Baha Mousa inquiry raises important human rights concerns
You can see why Sir Mike Jackson was Tony Blair’s favourite soldier. He looks – even with his manicured eye bags – like a general and he talks like a general. He is politically shrewd; he demanded the opinion on the legality of the Iraq war that has subsequently dogged ...
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Law firms and investors showing 'little appetite' for external funding
Lifting restrictions on external investment in law firms will not lead to a ‘big bang’ for the legal profession, ‘just a big whimper’, a leading private equity investor has predicted. His comments came as the Ministry of Justice confirmed that the new government is ‘fully ...
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Lawyer wins tribunal appeal over withdrawal of job offer
A woman lawyer has won her appeal against an employment tribunal ruling that disability discrimination did not lie behind a major law firm’s decision to withdraw a job offer.
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Fresh legal aid cuts not ruled out by MoJ
The new legal aid minister refused to rule out more legal aid cuts in his first press interview last week. Jonathan Djanogly (pictured) also said no decision had been made on whether the coalition would proceed with the Labour government’s plans to consolidate the criminal defence ...
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Are some cases beyond the pale when it comes to legal aid?
After Roy Whiting’s sentence for the murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne was reduced by the Court of Appeal, her mother criticised the availability of legal aid to fund the action and solicitors who advise prisoners to fight such cases.
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Border agency has to get it right
I agree with C Selvarajah ‘Asylum tragedy’ (see letters, 27 May). Nobody likes uncertainty, which prevents them from pursuing a full life.
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How legal services reforms will affect high street firms
A glimpse of the future can be found in unlikely places. Nigel Haddon, chairman of the Law Society’s Law Management Section (LMS), caught one in a local supermarket. And he heard it, too. Haddon was at his local Co-op when he was ‘surprised to hear advertising ...
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Society repeats nationwide ad campaign to promote solicitors
The Law Society has launched a repeat of last year’s nationwide drive to promote solicitors in an advertising campaign that began this week. Adverts will run in more than 450 railway stations and on more than 40 buses, as well as in the national press and ...
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Banks' reluctance to grant loans impedes student access to LPC
Access to the profession is being restricted because banks are increasingly unwilling to provide loans to Legal Practice Course students, the Junior Lawyers Division has warned. JLD chair Heidi Sandy said LPC students across the country have reported that they are finding it more difficult ...
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Take the fight to the retailers
One element of the QualitySolicitors launch that struck me was the move into shopping centre retail space. Considered alongside the recent research Shopping Around, by Jon Robins at Jures, that move might appear obvious for general practice firms. Legal services are highly profitable, with complex people businesses needing face-to-face ...
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Joint pro bono clearing house to launch
A National Pro Bono Centre is to open this summer to act as a ‘hub’ for pro bono charities. The NPBC, which has been registered as a new legal charity, will bring together in one building LawWorks, the Bar Pro Bono Unit and the ILEX Pro ...
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Mayer Brown picks up pro bono gong
US firm Mayer Brown International was recognised for its work with pro bono group LawWorks at the charity’s annual awards ceremony last night. The firm won the award for the best contribution by a law firm, for supporting numerous projects including providing pro bono assistance through ...
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Bar must step up competition with solicitors, chairman warns
The bar must embrace direct access to the public to compete in a system that has been ‘calibrated and designed to hand the entire legal aid pot to solicitors’, the Bar Council chairman said last week. Speaking at a symposium last week to discuss the paper ...