All News articles – Page 1730
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News
ICC's credibility hangs on Palestinian statehood decision
President Obama’s meeting this week with the Israeli prime minister has focused attention on the universal goal of a Palestinian state living peacefully alongside its Jewish neighbour. But there is increasing concern in legal circles that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court risks making the ...
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Inns of Court president withdraws letter on solicitor-advocates
The Law Society has forced the bar onto the defensive in the increasingly charged debate about the role and performance of solicitor higher-court advocates (HCAs). Lady Justice Smith, president of the Council of the Inns of Court, has taken the unusual step of withdrawing ...
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Virtual court ‘puts solicitors at risk’
Defence solicitors taking part in pilots of ‘virtual courts’ could be at risk of injury from their clients, practitioners have warned. The concern has arisen because the video equipment to be used in the pilot requires solicitors to sit alongside their client in a modified ...
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Communicating in plain English is the way forward
Neil Quantick is principal of Quanticks solicitors in Reigate, Surrey I’m terribly proud of being a solicitor. I’m terribly proud to be part of a ...
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Revolution for regulators coming ready or not
The Legal Services Board’s discussion paper on regulation of alternative business structures is most significant for its bold and unambiguous statements of intent.
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Rock films, floating companies and treatment centres
Juke box Dury: City firm Field Fisher Waterhouse advised debt fund Aegis on financing Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, a film about the life of pop singer Ian Dury (pictured). Aegis intends to commit $50m (£33m) to film funding in total. Cheltenham firm Wiggin advised the film’s ...
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Turning strategy into tactics – simply carry out what you plan
A lot of time and effort goes into formulating a strategy. This might involve partners’ conferences, staff consultations and animated debate – and ultimately, agreement upon strategic objectives, how they will be achieved...
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Profits fall at CMS Cameron McKenna
City firm CMS Cameron McKenna reported a 14% fall in profits as it became the first big commercial law firm to release its financial results this year. The decline in profits, from £84m in 2007/08 to £72m for the year to 30 April 2008/09, came as ...
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Review: books cast a magic spell
The enchanted LibraryKaren Andrea Legend/YouWriteOn, £5.99 After visiting a bookshop promoting the works of Spanish novelists Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, and Carlos ...
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Drive to put lawyers on governing board of every school
International law firms will no longer be able to pump new lawyers into booming practice areas and expanding international offices, even after the recession ends, according to the head of one of the world’s biggest firms. ‘You will see less of the crazy, untamed growth ...
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Drive to put lawyers on governing board of every school
Lawyers could take a seat on every school governing board under a project aimed at encouraging children from a wider range of backgrounds to enter the legal profession. The Law Society-backed project, ALLIES, will help lawyers to apply to become governors, and bring together ...
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Biting off more than you can chew
Long nights and short summers don’t seem to have dulled the wit of Torben Melchior, president of the Danish supreme court. He told last weekend’s plenary session of the council of bars and law societies of Europe in Copenhagen that, despite public and media perceptions to the contrary, courts’ sentencing ...
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Bribery bill will involve no shock tactics, law commissioner says
British companies should not be subjected to ‘extreme’ rules when carrying out business overseas, a Law Commission commissioner told MPs and peers during a two-hour parliamentary hearing on the draft bribery bill. Professor Jeremy Horder told a joint committee charged with scrutinising the bill that ...
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The bigger picture
In his critique of the career of Lord Hoffmann (‘Judging the Judges’, 23 April), Joshua Rozenberg presents an incomplete picture of his role in the Pinochet litigation.
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Biased system
Anyone reading the recent articles on judicial appointments by the Lord Chief Justice and the president of the Law Society might think that there were few barriers to attaining a fair system of making judicial appointments (see [2009] Gazette, 17 April, 10-11). This is simply not the case.
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Law Society calls for halt to best value tendering scheme
The Law Society has urged the Legal Services Commission to stop its plans to roll out best value tendering for police station work and urged firms in the pilot areas to think carefully before taking part. In an outspoken address to a conference, ‘Sixty years of ...
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Best value tendering – what is to be done?
No one present at the Criminal Law Solicitors Association conference last week could have been left in any doubt about the profession’s almost-universal opposition to price-competitive tendering for the commissioning of police station legal aid work.
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Bach to the wall
Last Friday was not a good day for our legal aid minister, Lord Bach of Lutterworth. First his ministerial sidekick, Shahid Malik, became a casualty of the expenses scandal engulfing Westminster. Then he was given a rough ride at a legal aid conference, where he ...
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Universities ask City to plug gaps in law faculty funding
Top university law faculties have begun talks with City law firms asking for fresh injections of cash to plug funding gaps, the Gazette has learned. It is understood that law faculties are making special requests for donations beyond firms’ usual contributions.
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Litigation funding: an overview of a contentious area of growth
A litigator’s job description could increasingly be said to include the skills of bookie and salesman – assessing the odds of winning a case and advising clients on the evolving market in funding their litigation.