All News articles – Page 1767
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News
Clampdown on legal aid fraudsters
The Coroners and Justice Bill creates new powers to clampdown on people who make fraudulent claims for legal aid or fail to pay their share of costs. Changes will allow data about individuals to be shared routinely between the Legal Services Commission and the Department for Work and Pensions. Courts ...
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Legal advice
Breach of contract – Conditional fee arrangements – Costs – Retainers (1) Bray Walker Solicitors (a firm) (2) Bevans Bray Walkers Ltd (t/a Bevans) v Carlo Moise Silvera: QBD (Mr Justice Blake): 18 December 2008 ...
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Legislation mooted on client bank accounts
The British Bankers’ Association and the Law Society may seek legislation to clear up confusion over compensation payable when solicitors’ client accounts are held in collapsed banks. The two bodies are considering asking the government to amend the Banking Bill, currently passing ...
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Accountancy/legal mega-firms will expose conflicts of interest
I read your opinion ‘A Level Playing Field’ (see [2008] Gazette, 15 January, 10) about proposed reforms of the Scottish legal profession with great concern. I recognise that the implementation ...
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Firms looking abroad
Expansion into foreign markets has been pushed to the top of the agenda for commercial law firms looking to grow their business, according to new research. More firms (38% of the total polled) would rather expand into a foreign jurisdiction over the next one to three ...
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Sir John Mortimer: 1923-2009
Tributes have been paid to one of the legal profession’s best-known figures, the barrister and writer Sir John Mortimer, who died last week. Desmond Browne QC, chairman of the Bar Council, said: ‘Like his father, the blind advocate whom he immortalised in Voyage Round My Father, John Mortimer brought both ...
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Personal injury
Limitation periods - Personal injury claims Stephen Cain v Bernice Francis: Shona Mckay v (1) Stephen Hamlani (2) Direct Line Insurance Plc: CA (Civ Div) (Sir Robert Andrew Morritt, Lady Justice Smith, Lord Justice Maurice Kay): 18 December 2008 ...
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The issues raised by police officers conferring on their notes
Last May barrister Mark Saunders was killed by police after he repeatedly fired a shotgun out of the window of his Chelsea flat.
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Samba sponsor
Football sponsorship is an expensive business and not many provincial law firms expect to see their proud brand emblazoned across the chest of a World Cup-winning captain. Leeds corporate and commercial outfit The Needle Partnership appears to have managed it, however. The firm has signed ...
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Transfer request
Banks have begun asking top law firms to transfer their client accounts to them from other banks in order to secure lending facilities, as some partners move their private accounts abroad to gain full protection from bank collapses.
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Salaried partners need more support
I write to announce the formation of The Association of Salaried Partners. The purpose of this organisation will be to support the interests of both former and current salaried partners within the legal profession.
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Sweet music
Basil Preuveneers, council member for Croydon and North Kent, responded to our request for solicitor musicians by revealing that he plays keyboards, trumpet, cornet and accordion. But not at the same time. The photo shows him with actress Jane Asher, president of the Parkinson’s Disease Society, at the society’s annual ...
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Met row threatens trials
A row between the Metropolitan Police Service and doctors who care for detainees in police stations is threatening to undermine criminal trials and harm the treatment of those in custody, medical practitioners say. New contracts for the Met’s 150 forensic medical examiners (FMEs) come into ...
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Lost for words
Reports of the death of the legal typo have been much exaggerated, if our readers are to be believed. Georgie Godby of Cambridge recalls a high-tech example in a contract that was run through an autocorrect function. It read: ‘The manufacturer does not exclude or ...
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In the Knowles
Spooky or what? There is at least one man for whom the knighthood of DLA Piper boss Nigel Knowles (pictured) in the New Year Honours will have come as little surprise. In the last Gazette of 2005, Tony ‘Gypsy Rose’ Williams, one-time Clifford Chance managing partner and now head of ...
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Internet ‘first’ for solicitor searches
The internet is on the brink of overtaking traditional channels such as personal recommendations as a way of finding a solicitor to carry out a simple transaction, such as conveyancing or making a will, according to research published this week. The survey, carried out for ...
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A level playing field
Is it really feasible that a law firm in Carlisle will be allowed to profit-share with a local accountant and save on overheads, while another firm up the M6 in Gretna will not? The answer, fortunately, appears to be no. After years of prevarication and politicking, the Scottish legal profession ...
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Fees 'frisson'
You reported last week that the Solicitors Regulation Authority ‘voted 13 to two, with one abstention, not to reimpose a ban on referral payments’ (see [2009] Gazette, 8 January, 3). This is correct, save that the vote you refer to was the second vote. This took place immediately after the ...
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Fairness and justice
Richard Moorhead is right to emphasise that, in contrast to the interpretation being put on his contingency fee studies by those who appear desperate for an alternative to the current costs system, contingency fees are not a solution (see [2008] Gazette, 11 December, 9). It is ...
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Starmer wades into TV trials debate
The new director of public prosecutions has reignited the debate over televising criminal trials, saying cameras in court would ‘bring a breath of fresh air’ to proceedings. In an interview for Channel 4 News, Keir Starmer said: ‘The more the public know about the criminal justice ...