All News articles – Page 1660
-
News
A long shot?
At first glance, the invite to this year’s Serious Fraud Office annual press shindig sent an icy chill down Obiter’s spine. Being one to have a firm grip on important events – thanks to a trusty iPhone calendar rather than photographic memory (yes, times have moved on) – the date ...
-
News
Thought police
It was a bright cold day in June and the clocks were striking 13. Obiter Smith needed to find a study of local legal aid commissioned by the last government and published last year. However a search by the document’s title on the Ministry of ...
-
News
New international hub to promote pro bono work
A new online service to promote pro bono legal work around the world and provide an international hub for information on anti-corruption and good governance was launched today by the Thomson Reuters Foundation TrustLaw provides: an online database of national legislation; international conventions; news; country profiles; ...
-
News
Solicitors ‘should enter into partnership with estate agents’
The future for the conveyancing market in England and Wales lies in partnerships between solicitors and estate agents to provide a one-stop shop for sellers, the new president of the E-Homebuying Forum has told the Gazette. Sir Bryan Carsberg, who is also a former director of ...
-
News
Could Beethoven have been a lawyer?
As the euro and the idea of Europe go into freefall, as the UK’s debts mount and swingeing cuts take place, let us talk about something really important: why is it that so few great artists have been lawyers?
-
News
Mental health and disability discrimination protection
A person has a ‘disability’ if he or she has a mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse impact on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities – section 1 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Alcohol and drug addiction as well as five ...
-
News
Can advertising boost the solicitor brand?
The Law Society has dipped its toes in the water in terms of attempting to advertise the solicitor brand for some years. But last year it really took the plunge, investing £211,000 in the Help I need somebody campaign. And this time round it has doubled that amount.
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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.
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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.
-
News
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.
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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) ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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’.