All News articles – Page 1715
-
News
Water project, lottery loans and town planning
Water works: City firm Trowers & Hamlins advised a consortium of lenders on financing the $1bn (£612m) Salalah independent water and power project in Oman. City firm Denton Wilde Sapte advised the state-owned Oman Power and Water Procurement Company. ...
-
News
Matter of principle
I read the letter from Michael Moore claiming that solicitors need to pay referral fees for financial survival. I disagree (see [2009] Gazette, 26 November, 9).
-
News
Weight on my mind
Without wishing to make light of what is clearly a very serious matter for the Norfolk solicitor who had been charging clients by the weight of their files – Brian D Woodham’s letter (see [2009] Gazette, 3 December 11)...
-
News
That’s the point
Trevor Moore in his recent letter (3 December) asks ‘what is the point in being a solicitor?’ To a certain extent, I share his frustration at the role of solicitors being constantly undermined, but I firmly believe that there is something inherently ‘special’ about being able to call oneself a ...
-
News
In praise of... solicitors
Guardian readers will recognise the above formulation, which the newspaper occasionally employs to applaud society’s less conspicuous mainstays. We employ it in part to balance last week’s opinion, which reflected on the declining respect in which solicitors believe their profession is held and ...
-
News
Law Society Charity donates £369,000 to good causes
The Law Society Charity donated £369,000 to good causes over the past year despite the recession, it announced today. Its accounts for the 2008/09 financial year showed a 3.4% drop in grants made compared to the previous year. The charity supports organisations ...
-
News
Government moves could hit City pay packets
Perhaps London’s investment bankers are wishing they’d chosen a career in corporate law instead. Alistair Darling looks set to come down heavily on banker bonuses in his pre-budget speech today, with commentators predicting a super tax on bonuses in excess of the impending 50% income tax for high earners.
-
News
Generation gap
It came as a breath of fresh air to read in last week’s leader how as a profession we complain that we are no longer respected, while, on the facing page, a letter from Peter S Hughes confirmed his rugged independence and refusal to enter into referral fee arrangements.
-
News
The ‘first’ justice commissioner – a three-minute guide
Who? Viviane Reding has just been appointed as the commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship in José Manuel Barroso’s new European Commission. As such, she will be responsible for the lawyers’ portfolio, along with the many justice issues that the commission now deals with. She is the first to ...
-
News
Ethics and the legal profession, part three
In the last of three articles describing the history of ethics and the legal profession, Mark Humphries looks at the development of professional regulation and considers future ethical challenges
-
News
What to watch in invoice finance
Invoice finance has grown enormously in the last decade after the banks had finally understood that they could not easily obtain a fixed charge over book debts. Rather than rely solely on a floating charge, banks realised that the safest way of financing the cashflow of ...
-
News
Sharing spaces for lawyers may work, but only if lawyers want them to
I was travelling home on the tube the other day and the chap next to me was tapping away on a Windows Mobile device. He looked like an IT type so I engaged him in conversation. Nice fella – turns out he was working on a government project to create ...
-
News
Chinese float, Islamic financing, and Brawn GP Formula 1 team
Chinese float: Magic circle firm Clifford Chance advised on two Hong Kong Stock Exchange flotations that raised $6.1bn (£3.7bn) in total. The firm advised China Minsheng Bank on its $3.9bn (£2.37bn) flotation and China Longyuan Power on its $2.2bn (£1.34bn) listing.
-
News
Data page for November 2009
The data page is the financial rates and data complied for the Law Society Gazette by MoneyFacts Group, the UK's largest supplier of savings and mortgage data. DownloadsDownload the data page for November 2009 below ...
-
News
Education and training is about much more than CPD
As the legal landscape changes, lawyers are finding that it is no longer good enough for them to be just good lawyers – they must also run their firms more effectively and understand their commercial clients better. As Maureen Miller, the Law Society’s head of membership services, points out: ‘It ...
-
News
Banks could be first to face US-style ‘opt-out’ class actions
Banks and other financial institutions could be the first to face US-style ‘opt-out’ class actions, the chancellor confirmed this week. During the Financial Services Bill’s second reading in parliament, Alistair Darling said that though he does not want to see ‘the widespread development’ of class actions, ...
-
News
Drop in suspicious activity reports by solicitors
The number of suspicious activity reports (SARs) made by solicitors has fallen by more than a quarter over the last year, according to figures published by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). SOCA’s third annual report showed that solicitors filed 4,772 SARs between October 2008 and ...
-
News
SRA boosts the diversity of adjudicators
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has confirmed the appointments of a panel of 23 external adjudicators, who will make decisions on regulatory matters.
-
News
New commission chairman planning to reform adult social care law
The Law Commission is planning ‘very important and potentially very exciting’ reforms to the law on social care for adults, the commission’s new chairman said in an interview for the Gazette. Sir James Munby, who now sits in the Court of Appeal as Lord Justice Munby, ...
-
News
New Law Commission chairman planning to reform adult social care law
The Law Commission is planning ‘very important and potentially very exciting’ reforms to the law on social care for adults, the commission’s new chairman said in an interview for the Gazette. Sir James Munby, who now sits in the Court of Appeal as Lord Justice Munby, ...