All News articles – Page 1774
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News
Sweet sixteen
A trio of doughty legal wordsmiths can look forward to a bubble this Christmas after solving – or nearly solving – our recent anagram competition. John Seagrave of A Broken Card (aka Barker and Co) in Hull, together with Giles Bennett of Devonshires (sod his nerve!) win special plaudits for ...
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Rat race
No jokes about rodents and sinking ships, please. The above are esteemed members of the City of London Solicitors Company, sister to the City of London Law Society, which marks its centenary this year. This was not a Pied Piper-esque flushing out of City lawyers via the Thames. It was ...
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Peak practice
Matthew Davies, a partner at Hill Dickinson in Liverpool, got in touch after receiving a text message from a client stuck in a blizzard 4,000 metres up Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in the Caucasus (and, indeed, Europe). His client wanted legal advice after an expedition member was injured: what ...
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Offshoring legal work: do lawyers risk outsourcing themselves?
When City firm Lovells was faced with reviewing more than a million documents as part of a major case, it decided to outsource the work to India – saving more than £3m in the process. This is a sign of the times – increasingly, client pressure over fees is prompting ...
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Insurance rethink
Staggered renewal dates for professional indemnity insurance (PII) and a return to the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF) are being considered by the Law Society’s PII crisis group, as the number of firms in the assigned risks pool (ARP) looks set to register a six-fold increase. As ...
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Immigration law
Entry clearances – Public order offences – Reasons – Snoop dog Cordozar Broadus (USA) v Entry Clearance Officer: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Laws, Carnwath, Richards): 13 November 2008 The ...
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Human rights
Defamation – Education – Local government – Privacy – School exclusions H v Tomlinson: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Ward, Sedley, Longmore): 13 November 2008 The appellant head teacher ...
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In-house lawyers, the Gazette needs you
Take part in our survey of what in-house lawyers are thinking, and doing, about outsourcing work offshore. To follow this week's feature on outsourcing and offshoring legal work (see Features section), the Gazette needs your input to a survey on what businesses are doing in terms ...
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Fears over UKBA immigration shake-up
Concerns are mounting in the legal profession over new immigration rules described by the United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) as the biggest shake-up of border security in 45 years. Tiers 2 and 5 of the points-based system, which go live today, require 20,000 employers to have ...
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Vulnerable face discrimination
Vulnerable offenders suffer ‘systemic and routine discrimination’ at the hands of the police, court and prison services, according to a damning report.
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Land Registry DIY disaster
How embarrassing for the Land Registry. It thought it could handle all property transactions and cut out the solicitors with electronic conveyancing and their own rules. Now we find that electronic conveyancing is shelved and the rules have been changed to make solicitors the last line of defence against fraud ...
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Spending cuts highlight HMCS property plight
Chancellor Alistair Darling’s hopes of shaving £5bn from public spending by 2011 may quickly run into difficulties, a Gazette investigation of efficiency plans at HM Court Service (HMCS) suggests. In his Pre-Budget Report (PBR) on Monday, Darling said he expects savings from ‘more ...
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Criminal law
Police – Torts – False imprisonment – Suspicion – Terrorism – Unlawful arrest Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis v Mohamed Raissi: CA (Civ Div) (Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, Lords Justice Maurice Kay, Stanley Burnton): ...
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Unresolved issues relating to the role of the Supreme Court
Despite the refreshing openness of last week’s judicial seminar on the Supreme Court, some of the most difficult questions remain unanswered. We learned, for example, that more than 30 applications have been received for the three judicial posts that will have become vacant by next October ...
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Law Society Council: opportunity lost
I write in connection with your report of the Law Society Council debate on reform of Council’s size and composition (see [2008] Gazette, 20 November, 2).
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Copyright, music and exemption: playing music in public
A government review of copyright exemptions for playing of recorded music may force some not-for-profit bodies to turn off their TVs, radios and CD players. They and charitable bodies may soon decide that silence is golden if the repeal of current exemptions means they will have ...
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Solicitors warned over property competitions
Solicitors advising clients who are selling their homes through ‘house competitions’ must act with caution to avoid falling foul of the gambling laws or complicity in fraud or money laundering, the Law Society has warned. The collapse of the housing market has prompted a growing number ...
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Medico-legal collapse hits solicitors
Hundreds of medical reports for personal injury claims will be delayed following the collapse of one of the country’s largest medical reporting agencies. E-Reporting Group (ERG) fell into administration on 18 November, leaving 9,000 doctors unpaid for completed reports and pending reports due to be sent ...
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Rate of firm closures increases
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) says it expects to shut down 56% more law firms this year than it did last. The number of ‘interventions’ could reach 75 by the end of the year, compared with 48 in 2007. Intervention involves the SRA sending an agent ...
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Civil procedure
Costs – Allocation – Conduct – Multi-track – Small claims David Peakman v Linbrooke Services Ltd: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Mummery, Goldring, Lady Justice Smith): 13 November 2008 The ...