All News articles – Page 1738
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News
Irrelevant questions
I am not surprised that nine out of 10 solicitors have not replied to a diversity questionnaire.
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Moneysupermarket.com launches personal injury leads service
Moneysupermarket.com, the price comparison website, is to launch a personal injury leads service today, becoming the first major consumer-oriented website to enter this arena. The website claims 30 law firms have signed up to receive business leads for people seeking PI legal advice. PAA Leads, the ...
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SRA not up to the job, Law Society tells Hunt review
The Solicitors Regulation Authority ‘lacks the sufficient skills, understanding and flexibility to effectively regulate all parts of the profession’, the Law Society has told the independent review of legal regulation, which Chancery Lane commissioned. In its submission to Lord Hunt’s review, Chancery Lane says sole practitioners ...
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Herbert Smith managing partner predicts pay freeze
Salaries at City law firms are likely to remain static for some years, Herbert Smith managing partner David Willis (pictured) predicted this week after his firm announced 84 job cuts in London. Salaries will be frozen for all staff except trainees in the firm’s London office ...
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Judge removed following OJC investigation
A district judge has been removed from office in the first judicial sacking since 1983. The Office for Judicial Complaints said yesterday that Margaret Short, who was appointed to the South East District Bench in 1993, has been removed following an investigation into ‘inappropriate behaviour’. A ...
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Passing fancy
There is more to rugby, Obiter has learned, than Neanderthal foreheads, cauliflower ears and a taste for communal bathing. The game for hooligans played by gentlemen also has a charitable side. Three rugby-playing solicitors are to help raise £100,000 for leukaemia research in memory of lifelong friend and all-round sportsman, ...
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Employment
Health and safety at work - Casual workers - Compensation - Contracts of employment R (on the application of Health and Safety Executive) v Shah Nawaz Pola: CA (Crim Div) (Lord Justice Moses, Judge Hedley, Judge Russell, Recorder of ...
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Probate law: equitable election, proprietary estoppel
In Frears v Frears [2008] EWCA Civ 1320, the Court of Appeal had to consider the equitable doctrine of election.
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Supreme effort
You were quite right to devote two pages to the importance of solicitors applying to join the judiciary (see [2009] Gazette, 17 April, 10-11).
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Law Society to hire diversity head
The Law Society is proposing to hire a high-profile head of diversity as part of a new framework to promote equality and diversity in the profession. Other measures, expected to be discussed at Council this week, include signing up 100 law firms to a Diversity Charter to be launched this ...
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Premiums to rise as PII crisis worsens
This year’s professional indemnity insurance (PII) renewals season will be at least as difficult as 2008 and probably worse, the joint Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority PII crisis group has concluded. Premiums will rise because of escalating claims on PII policies – especially from the ...
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LSB consumer panel members will do it for love, not money
‘The common thread that underpins the Legal Services Board’s work is the consumer,’ the LSB declared in its business plan. With this in mind, it is presently recruiting a chair and members for its consumer panel, which the board says will have ‘considerable scope to advise and influence the LSB ...
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Minority Lawyers Conference
The Minority Lawyers Conference was held last weekend. For many students and young solicitors, and indeed myself, it was inspiring to see and hear successful BME speakers...
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Green paper proposes role for local community in selecting judges
Aspiring district judges could have to win the endorsement of local community figures to secure appointment, under new proposals unveiled by the government today (29 April). The Ministry of Justice wants communities to work with the Judicial Appointments Commission in the ‘selection and deployment’ of district ...
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Talks deadlocked on new process for road traffic claims
Government plans to introduce a new process for handling low-value road traffic claims this autumn are under serious threat, the Gazette can reveal. Talks between all sides to define how the process should work – which it had been hoped would be completed by Christmas – ...
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Sweet charity
There’s a buzz in the air at bee’s knees hive of activity Hampshire law firm Coffin Mew. Obiter won’t try your patience any further with puns around Apis mellifera. Suffice it to say the firm has just signed up for another three years’ sponsorship of national charity Honeypot. It’s a ...
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Thomas to chair tribunals council
Jack Straw, the lord chancellor and secretary of state, has appointed former solicitor Richard Thomas as the new chairman of the Administrative Justice & Tribunals Council (AJTC). Thomas is currently the information commissioner and deputy chairman of the Consumers Association. He has been appointed for four ...
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Exceptional case
I was pleased to read Carolyn Regan’s commitment to constructive dialogue in reviewing the operation of fixed fees in mental health and including the role of ‘exceptional payments’ (see [2009] Gazette, 19 March, 11). She also indicates that nearly 90% of such exceptional cases are paid as asked.
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Pastoral care: support is out there in tough economic times
The impact of the recession on the legal market is unprecedented, but there is plenty of support available for those affected. On Monday, Jasmine Walker (not her real name) was talking to the partners in her conveyancing practice about ways to bring in new business. On ...
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Concern grows over probate ‘cold calls’ to funeral clients
Customers of Co-operative Funeralcare are being called by the organisation’s legal services department offering free advice about probate, a committee of the Law Society will hear this week. The Co-operative denied cold-calling. A spokesman said ‘the vast majority’ of customers welcome free legal advice, and ...