All News articles – Page 1722
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News
Winning with benefits
If you don’t tell people the benefits of the services you offer, they can’t make an informed choice between using a solicitor or an alternative service. This issue is highlighted by this week’s Gazette news item reporting a link between the Bereavement Advice Centre and a commercial service.
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Depressing decision to hold Iraq war inquiry behind closed doors
Has New Labour’s unremitting assault on civil rights passed its high-water mark? There have been encouraging signs of late. Parliament’s battered credentials were given a fleeting boost when Jack Straw dropped proposals for secret inquests. And new home secretary Alan Johnson seems less enthusiastic about ID cards than predecessor Jacqui ...
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Bank shares, education and property management deals
Barclays disposal: The London office of US firm Shearman & Sterling advised the Abu Dhabi government-owned International Petroleum Investment Company on disposing of 1.3 billion shares in Barclays bank – around 13.5% of Barclays’ share capital. Magic circle firm Clifford Chance advised Barclays.
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Bach handed compliment
Lord Bach, legal aid minister, must look forward to facing audiences of legal aid lawyers as much as Daniel looked forward to his engagement in the lions’ den. The minister has received a rough ride at events lately, but at the Legal Action Group’s conference ...
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Pro bono lawyers celebrate awards
City firm Taylor Wessing won the award for best contribution by a law firm at LawWorks’ annual pro bono awards. The firm was recognised for its ‘commitment and enthusiasm to investing in the community’, particularly through its work organising and staffing a weekly legal advice ...
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Kent local authority legal teams join forces
Three mid-Kent local authorities are to join forces in a shared legal services project that aims to save more than £250,000 a year. Under the new model, legal staff at Swale, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells borough councils will remain based at their authorities but support ...
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Norton Rose looks east with Australia merger
City firm Norton Rose is to merge with Australian firm Deacons to create the 1800-lawyer Norton Rose Group, the firms announced today. Once the merger comes into force on 1 January 2010, the new firm will have an estimated combined turnover of £420m, with 29 offices ...
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Solicitors and barristers unite to fight BVT ‘reverse auction’
The Law Society and Bar Council have joined forces to warn that access to justice will be reduced if the government ‘ploughs on with its reckless approach’ to best value tendering (BVT). The two bodies, together with the Criminal Bar Association, issued a joint statement as ...
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Sentencing and the attorney general
Whenever the attorney general sticks a political oar into judicial waters, constitutionalists start to get a little bit edgy. Perhaps, then, they were thankful that Baroness Scotland chose not to intervene in the Baby P sentencing earlier this week, thereby preventing the old arguments being reheated.
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Attention deficit
Current debates about the judicial selection process are amusing Clive Jones, a consultant with Wrexham firm GHP Legal. He recalls, after some contested advocacy, being invited in to the private room of a senior county court judge and asked if he would consent to be recommended for appointment to judicial ...
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Judicial hurdles hamper recovery of looted assets, says transparency group
International efforts to block the looting of poor countries by corrupt governments are hampered by the lack of a single body to combat money laundering in the UK, according to a government-sponsored study. Combating money laundering and recovering looted gains, by Transparency International, calls on the government to fund asset-recovery ...
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Nice girls don’t ask
A senior guy from the US moves to London to head up the UK operation. In his first week, 12 men come to his office to tell him who they are and what they do for the company. Not one woman does the same.
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Client-matching website takes aim at claims handling firms
A solicitor has launched a website to bring together prospective clients and solicitors who will take on their cases in an attempt to drive claims handlers out of the process. The Law Bazaar, set up by Costas Andrea (pictured), who practised as an international litigator for ...
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Jackman collects legal aid gong
Angela Jackman, a partner at London firm Fisher Meredith, received an award for outstanding achievement at last night’s Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year awards. Jackman was recognised for her work in the development of education law to ensure justice for disadvantaged children, as well as ...
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Solicitor loses appeal against insider trading jail sentence
A solicitor jailed after the Financial Services Authority’s first criminal prosecution for insider dealing lost his appeal against sentence last week. Christopher McQuoid, 40, former general counsel at TTP Communications, and his father-in-law, James Melbourne, 74, were both found guilty of one count of insider dealing ...
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Meinl affair casts shadow over common law jurisdictions
How safe is it for British businesses to invest in Austria? A flying visit this week suggests its response to allegations of white-collar crime leaves a lot to be desired. Despite reforms last year, the relationship between Austrian prosecutors, pre-trial judges and criminal defence lawyers still seems far too cosy.
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Solicitors alarmed at links between Bereavement Advice Centre and probate firm
Financial links between a not-for-profit advice organisation and a probate services company have come under fire from solicitors. The Bereavement Advice Centre publishes a website with the subtitle ‘What to do when someone dies’. Solicitors say that the organisation’s leaflets publicising a helpline promoting BAC’s commercial ...
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LLPs – an acquired taste
Are LLPs going strong or not? Is it now firmly established that they are a ‘good thing’? The main reasons for not converting have not changed.
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Addressing concerns about periodical payments in personal injury cases
The Court of Appeal in Thompstone determined that periodical payments for future losses for care and case management should be linked to an earnings index which annually has historically risen by 1-2.5% higher than the RPI.
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Slaughter and May slammed over £22m bill
Magic circle firm Slaughter and May was accused of running up an ‘astronomical bill’ to the Treasury by a Liberal Democrat peer today. The firm received £22m in legal fees for work relating to ‘financial stability’ in the financial year 2008-09, according to Liberal Democrat research. ...