All News articles – Page 1834
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News
Lawyer kicks off FA insurance battle
A sports lawyer is threatening to sue the Football Association (FA) for failing to insure club footballers against loss of earnings arising from injuries, the Gazette can exclusively reveal. The FA requires all clubs to have at least £5m of public liability insurance. However, it leaves ...
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Wine column: best of British
In the mid-1970s Monty Python ran an Australian wine-tasting sketch with the punchline ‘bring your own bottle’. The studio audience cried with laughter. With names such as Kanga Rouge and Wallaby White just starting to appear on the British High Street, it was little wonder that its then fledgling wine ...
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British female rowers win bronze at Olympics
Olympic rower Elise Laverick (right), who is set to join City firm Ashurst as a trainee solicitor, powered home to win bronze for Great Britain in the women’s double sculls in Beijing on Saturday alongside Anna Bebington. Laverick fought her way back to fitness after being the victim of a ...
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Setting up shop: building a new family practice
Lawyers need to be more like entrepreneurs – that was the message legal business guru Professor Stephen Mayson gave during his speech at the Law London 2008 event. And there cannot be anything much more entrepreneurial for a solicitor to do than setting up their own firm. ...
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Care in the legal community
This year’s Excellence Awards will recognise high-quality client care This year, firms that have demonstrated exceptional innovation and consistent excellence in the delivery of client services will be recognised at the Law Society’s Excellence Awards. The new Legal Complaints Service Award for ...
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SRA 'open to racism charge'
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has left itself ‘open to the charge of institutional racism’ because of its failure to address concerns that it investigates a disproportionate number of black and minority ethnic solicitors (BME), according to a report by former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Lord Ouseley.
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Medical costs on the up
The legal cost of defending doctors and other medical professionals against fitness-to-practice investigations by the General Medical Council has increased fifteen-fold, or 31% annually, over the last decade, according to the Medical Defence Union (MDU). In its annual report, the MDU, a charity founded in 1885 ...
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MP warns courts not to 'jump queue'
A UK bill of rights and freedoms should not enable the courts to help individuals ‘jump the queue’ when pursuing proposed new ‘rights such as healthcare and education, the chairman of the joint committee on human rights has told the Gazette.
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A steep learning curve
Solicitors do not have the advocacy experience or training to appoint themselves solicitor-advocates Tim Dutton QC raises valid concerns about solicitors appointing themselves solicitor-advocates (see [2008] Gazette, 31 July, 2). The training solicitors receive in advocacy is quite pitiful and often learned on the hoof. Barristers ...
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Plaques, suicides & dangerous doors
It is often said that there is ‘no law’ in personal injury work. But in the space of nine months the law Lords have delivered four judgments of profound importance. I have previously dealt with their important limitation decision in A v Hoare [2008] UKHL 6. In this article, I ...
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Double indemnity
I should point out a significant difference between the arrangements for compulsory indemnity insurance for solicitors and those applying to some other professions (see [2008] Gazette, 31 July, 1). The fact that an indemnity insurer has been removed from another profession’s list of preferred providers does not imply that it ...
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Levelling the playing field
Many actions needed to give effect to equality outcomes have not been implemented by the SRA Lord Ouseley’s investigation into why minority ethnic lawyers feature disproportionately in the work of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has generated much publicity. Peter Herbert, chair of the Society of ...
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Sails force
Yet more solicitors-at-sea action, this time courtesy of Hilary Meredith, 49-year-old salt and partner at Hilary Meredith Solicitors in Cheshire, who recently bagged a place aboard Dame Ellen MacArthur’s yacht at the Skandia Cowes Week earlier this month. Not only did Meredith get a personal tour ...
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Landlord and tenant
Human rights – Local government – Caravan sites – Gypsies – Possession claims – Travellers William Doherty & Ors (appellant) v Birmingham City Council (respondent) & Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government (intervener): HL (Lords Hope ...
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Search right
The matter of personal searches has always been controversial, but many firms – both solicitors and licensed conveyancers – rely on searches carried out by an agency and have done for many years. A survey carried out by STL in March 2007, before home information packs became compulsory, indicated that ...
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Up to standard
In his recent letter, David Pearl suggests that failure to carry out local authority searches is evidence of a lowering of standards (see [2008] Gazette, 31 July, 7).
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Star trekker
A 268-mile trek along the mountainous spine of England was a mere stroll in the park for Abigail Mann, a 37-year-old solicitor at St Albans firm Alan Mann & Co. Nothing daunted her, not even twisting her ankle days before setting off and having to walk the entire route with ...
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Victory for firm over client account funds
Irwin Mitchell has won approval to claim funds paid on account even though the client’s finances were later subject to a restraint order. The national firm was acting for a client facing a Revenue & Customs investigation, who paid £5,000 on account of costs into its ...