All News articles – Page 1778
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News
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Irrelevant questions
I am not surprised that nine out of 10 solicitors have not replied to a diversity questionnaire.
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Solicitor-advocates and quality – the issues
The 1990 Courts and Legal Services Act ended the bar’s monopoly on rights of audience in the higher courts. Since then there have been periodic murmurings of discontent from the bar and judiciary about the quality of solicitor higher court advocates. Many observers have seen this as nothing more than ...
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Memory lane
The Law Society's first national advertising campaign as well as a committee discussing legal measures to prevent unlawful seizure of aircraft. The Law Society’s Gazette, 26 April 1999 ...
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Magnificent seven
After reading Richard Biggs’ claim to be the fastest lawyer in the land (see [2009] Gazette, 17 April, 31), David Jeffery, an associate at Guernsey firm Collas Day, got in touch to claim the title. Jeffery tells us that he accepted instructions from a client on 5 February, following a ...
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Time out for Mansfield
After 42 years righting wrongs on behalf of clients such as the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, barrister Michael Mansfield says he is taking a break from court work. Don’t expect him to disappear from the headlines. The head of chambers at criminal and ...
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Out of service
I write further to your comment ‘Getting back on track’ regarding fast-track claims (see [2009] Gazette, 9 April, 8), and in particular road traffic accident cases.