All News articles – Page 1798
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News
Porn in the post
Obiter’s personal mail is usually an uninspiring mix of junk and bills. This is not the case for certain prisoners at high security Wakefield Prison in West Yorkshire. They have been receiving post ostensibly from their legal advisers which turns out to contain ...
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Women’s work
Grania Langdon-Down’s interview with the first female president of the Association of District Judges, Edwina Millward, made interesting reading (see [2009] Gazette, 12 February, 14).
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LDPs to go live on 31 March
The ‘go live’ date for legal disciplinary practices (LDPs) has been put back a month, to 31 March, at the instigation of justice minister Bridget Prentice. In a statement today, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said it will be able to regulate the new business ...
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Snow absenteeism creates legal headache
Weather-related absenteeism has brought fresh employment law headaches to firms struggling with redundancies and contract re-negotiations. Roger Byard, employment head at Kent firm Cripps Harries Hall, said where there is no good reason for missing work, managers should interview the individual and either ...
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Domestic violence victims shun legal advice
A fall in the number of domestic abuse injunctions may be caused by victims not engaging with the legal system, according to a study published by the Legal Services Commission. The Domestic Abuse Literature Review, published last week, ...
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CPS rapped for sending inexperienced advocates to court
The drive to push novice Crown Prosecution Service advocates into court has led to a decline in the quality of justice, the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association said last week. Giving evidence to the House of Commons justice committee, Peter Lodder QC said: ‘The ...
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Property search chief quits after just six months
Mervyn Pilley has resigned as chief executive of the Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) after only six months in the post. The trade organisation for the property search industry said the resignation followed a series of discussions in the new year between Pilley and the ...
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Local government law – ASBOs, injunctions and anti-social behaviour
Birmingham City Council has had a setback in its use of injunctions to curb serious gang-driven criminal and anti-social behaviour.
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Watchdog wins appeal over ‘boiler room’ scam
The Financial Services Authority today (17 February) won an appeal against Leeds legal firm Fox Hayes over its failure to take reasonable steps to prevent a $21m (£14.7m) ‘boiler room’ fraud that hit 670 UK investors.
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Only four firms apply to become LDPs
Hopes that the legal profession would eagerly embrace new business structures created by the Legal Services Act have received a blow with the news that only a handful of firms have applied to be part of the first wave of reforms. With only three weeks ...
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ECJ ruling threatens London’s arbitration status
London’s Commercial Court will no longer be entitled to grant anti-suit injunctions to support arbitration provisions with London as their seat, if doing so undermines the jurisdiction of another member state’s court, the European Court of Justice (pictured) ruled this week.
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Land Registry asks private firms to build property chain matrix
The Land Registry has announced it will support commercial IT companies to develop ‘Chain Matrix’ systems to make conveyancing more transparent. The Registry shelved its own prototype system in 2007 after spending £15m in partnership with IBM. This announcement was the result ...
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Asylum laws putting women at risk
British immigration policy is putting female asylum seekers at risk of sexual assault, lawyers warned this week as the Refugee Council reported that three-quarters of women seeking asylum have been raped either in their country of origin or in the UK.
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PPI claims become a revenue stream for law firms
In the last 12 months, the payment protection insurance (PPI) claims sector has exploded as customers increasingly become ‘clued up’ about their consumer rights.
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Lawyers blame NHS for soaring negligence bill
Clinical negligence lawyers have denied charges of profiteering following an National Health Service announcement that total claims could almost double to £713m next year. The NHS said the estimated £317m increase in the total bill for 2009/10 was the result of changes to ...
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Lord Bingham monitors the Binyam Mohamed controversy
David Miliband won something of a hollow victory over the media last week. The foreign secretary persuaded two judges not to publish ‘seven very short paragraphs’ they had withheld from a judgment last August. These 25 lines summarised reports to British security and intelligence officials by ...
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Solicitors to promote own high street brand
High street solicitors have launched a new legal brand to promote themselves collectively when supermarkets and other businesses enter the legal arena in 2011. QualitySolicitors.com is a nationwide alliance of small and medium-sized firms that will pool resources to develop a recognisable brand to compete with ...
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Breaking the law
They are supposed to uphold and administer the law, but when it comes to motoring, the legal profession shows delinquent tendencies. Lawyers, judges and magistrates are 60% more likely than the average motorist to have points on their licence, according to research by insurer ...
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Graduate recruiters buck jobs trend
Law firms top the league for graduate starting salaries and are predicted to recruit more graduates this year than in 2008 - bucking the national trend. These are among the key findings of the bi-annual survey of the jobs market by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR).
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Cost fears that may put solicitors off ID cards
The Home Office wants lawyers to be ‘early adopters’ of ID equipment. According to minister Meg Hillier, ‘for legal transactions it might well be worthwhile [solicitors] having a reading machine to quickly verify ID’ (see [2009] Gazette, 5 February, 4). There are many civil liberty arguments against the scheme. But ...