All News articles – Page 1664
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News
Law firm ‘disarray’ over retirement proposals
Proposed changes to the mandatory retirement age would pose management challenges for law firms and throw succession plans into ‘disarray’, employment lawyers have warned. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has published a series of proposals this week to allow people, including solicitors, ...
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Septuagenarian associates – coming to an office near you
Imagine you have won £6.5m. Even if you just tuck it under your mattress, that’s a cool £100,000 a year tax free for the next 65 years. You have an exquisite choice. You can kiss goodbye to the commute, the dark winter mornings...
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Love is in the air
As the worst night of the year for going out for dinner, otherwise known as Valentine’s Day, approaches on 14 February, lawyers might be interested to hear this little tale:
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Clampdown on mortgage fraud by lawyers saves lenders £15m
A campaign by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to target solicitors involved in property fraud has saved lenders £15-20m over the past nine months, the SRA claimed this week. Its inspectors have made emergency inspections of firms where property fraud was suspected and the SRA has given ...
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Law firms set up terror victim compensation scheme
The pro bono work of lawyers at two City firms has played a key role in the establishment of a new scheme to compensate British victims of terrorism abroad. Over the last three years, Lovells and Field Fisher Waterhouse (FFW) have been working on a scheme, ...
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Don’t stereotype your support staff
Tube journeys in London are a wonderfully varied experience. One minute you are chatting to a friendly tourist about where Harrods is, the next you are wondering if the enormous person who has parked themselves next to you has bought two tickets, to cater for the fact that they are ...
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Should we fear a European contract law?
The phrase ‘European contract law’ often sets alarm bells ringing in common law circles. Those bells will have begun shrieking in the relevant brains after the hearing before the parliament of the new EU commissioner for justice, Viviane Reding.
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Estate agents not influenced by referral fees, survey reports
Referral payments made by solicitors are ‘the least important consideration’ for estate agents when deciding which law firm to recommend, research has suggested. In a survey of more than 100 estate agents carried out by conveyancer and home information pack provider The Partnership, only 3% ...
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Government unveils strategy to tackle overseas bribery
The government has today announced a four-pronged strategy to tackle overseas bribery. The strategy aims to strengthen the UK’s bribery laws through the new bribery bill; encourage UK companies to apply appropriate ethical standards; support law enforcement agencies in the detection of corruption; and reduce the ...
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Will clients accept new conflicts rules?
The SRA’s latest, fast-tracked consultation on conflicts of interest is expected to receive a warm welcome in the City.Indeed, it is the City of London Law Society that has been pressing for the reform, which will allow law firms to act for ‘sophisticated’ clients in any situation in which there ...
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Payment by results
Both Natalie Saunders and Neil Wright make the point that it is the client and not the solicitor who should pay for the time wasted by inexpert or incompetent solicitors acting on the other side of a transaction or dispute (letters, 14 January).
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Negligence
Breach of duty of care – Negligent misrepresentation – Solicitors Cabvision Ltd v (1) Leonard Paul Feetum (2) Stephen Richard Marsden (3) Simon Alan Smith (4) Dean & Dean: ChD (Mr Justice Norris): 21 December 2009 ...
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Mediation success
The story ‘Family mediation pilot achieves mixed results’ (news, 7 January) suggested that court-based mediation in the pilot scheme had disappointing results.
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Right mechanism
I write with regard to Dick Jennings’s comment piece ‘Time is of the essence’ (see [2009] Gazette, 10 December, 10). His central premise is that legal services differ from other services in that cost cannot be predicted and value cannot be measured – a view that I fundamentally disagree with ...
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Martial law
In response to Christopher Digby-Bell’s letter of 7 January, I quote field marshal von Moltke: ‘No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.’ Michael Timms, M R Timms & Company, Dudley
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Memory lane
Notes from the editor at the end of the 1950s, reflecting on the implementation of legal aid. A letter from a Council Member looking back on certain changes throughout his career. ...
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Media law: protecting informants
Financial Times Limited and others v United Kingdom (application number 821/03), 15 December 2009.From time to time, an anonymous brown paper envelope finds its way mysteriously onto a reporter’s desk. That envelope contains leaked confidential documents telling a hell of a good story. ...
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Friend to the stars
Cue the trumpet fanfare: Obiter is pleased to announce a new King of the Celebrity Pics. Kevin Poulter, assistant solicitor at Wake Smith & Tofields in Sheffield, has blown the competition out of the water with this fantastic selection of himself posing with a smorgasbord of household names. ...
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Playing to an empty house
Obiter recently asked for examples of hammy behaviour in the courtroom. Our thanks to David Holt at Suffolk County Council for this little tale of a pompous barrister being given his comeuppance by a judge in the 1970s, when Holt was an articled ...
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Double talk
Foul-mouthed ventriloquism is not a talent you would expect of one of the land’s most senior judges, but for a fleeting moment last week, one Lord Justice appeared to show masterful technique. Presenting his final report on civil litigation costs – a 557-page tome to accompany the 663 pages of ...