All News articles – Page 2911
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News
Iraq: fragile justice
Nearly 10 years after regime change, seven years since the first democratic elections and despite several billion dollars worth of targeted aid, the rule of law in Iraq ranges from fragile to non-existent. In one of the first tests of Europe’s Common Security and Defence Policy, a small and little-known ...
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Fear and loathing in libel reform
To put it mildly, this is not a good time for politicians to be seen doing favours for media proprietors. Yet this is inevitably how the upcoming debate on libel reform - expected to be kicked off with a bill in the Queen’s speech in May - is going to ...
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EU withdrawal: at what price for lawyers?
I hope that the in-house journals of every trade and profession in the UK are now running articles like this, containing an assessment of the consequences for each particular sector of the UK withdrawing from the EU. It is obvious from the newspapers that we are in danger of sleepwalking ...
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It’s not enough to be a good lawyer
Having read a number of pieces recently on diversity and the lack of women and ethnic minorities in senior leadership positions in the legal profession, I keep seeing similar comments about lack of these opportunities. The message seems to come across again and again that opportunities need to be offered ...
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What the election result will mean for the legal profession
Unless they are unusually concentrated in marginal constituencies, the votes of UK solicitors are unlikely to swing the outcome of the general election in three weeks’ time. However, the main parties’ manifestos have much to say about the law (especially where it relates to crime, human rights and civil liberty), ...
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Working with DNA evidence
It is important for defence solicitors to understand DNA evidence better and routinely to press for greater disclosure, say Mark Fenhalls and Brian Costello On 20 December 2007 the case against Sean Hoey (R v Hoey [2007] NICC 49 – the Omagh bombing case) failed. Mr Justice Weir was critical ...
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Hopes rise for legal services in EU-US free trade deal
Free trade talks between the EU and US are almost certain to end with agreement freeing up the movement of lawyers, a leading European figure in the campaign to remove barriers has predicted. Louis-Bernard Buchman, chair of the International Legal Services committee of the Council of Bars and Law Societies ...
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SRA to rubber stamp next phase of red tape cuts
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has said it is open to further ideas for cutting regulation after several demands from members of the profession. The regulator is this week expected to rubber stamp the second phase of its programme to reduce red tape. Under the new reforms, compliance officers will no ...
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Cry freedom of information
The eyes of the news media have been elsewhere, but the House of Commons justice committee has just restated an important constitutional principle: freedom of information is a good thing. A long-awaited post-legislative review of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 concludes: ‘We do not believe that there has been ...
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Ministry IT costs soar as deadline looms
Numbers of temporary staff working on the Ministry of Justice’s £500m National Offender Management Service (NOMS) IT system have soared as the government rushes to complete projects before the general election, research has revealed. NOMS aims to share data across 125 prisons and 35 probation services. The project is due ...
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Cool reaction to European patent unification
Leading intellectual property lawyers in the UK have reacted coolly to the unitary patent and unified patent court process approved by the European parliament on Tuesday. ‘No one can doubt that having a single system is, in principle, a good idea,’ said Claire Bennett, partner in international firm DLA Piper's ...
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Convention on Modern Liberty debate
The need for a British human rights act was one of the few issues of contention to surface at the nationwide Convention on Modern Liberty held last Saturday, writes Michael Cross. Dominic Grieve QC MP (pictured), shadow attorney general, said a future Conservative government would introduce such an act, which ...
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Fiji rule of law report found in contempt
A Methodist minister in Fiji is awaiting sentencing for contempt after he quoted a Law Society Charity report whose contents were first revealed in the Gazette. The organisation headed by the Reverend Akuila Yabaki, the Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, also faces a crippling fine for ‘scandalising the court’ after its newsletter ...
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Contact details
Why are addresses and telephone numbers so frequently omitted from email communications (despite the plethora of disclaimers etc attached)? Why in the most elaborate websites is ‘contact us’ the hardest or last thing to find? Why is there a tendency on the part, usually of the most prestigious firms, to ...
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LETR: consumer watchdog is ‘greatly disappointed’
The Legal and Education Training Review is a ‘missed opportunity’ because it fails to heed calls for a re-accreditation scheme for solicitors, the legal consumer watchdog said today.
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A swift and sure way to computer disaster
Here we go again. Just two years after a new government promised to break with Labour’s record of IT-based policy fiascoes, along comes a high-profile public policy reform which looks set to go down the same dismal road. The success of the revolution set out in the Swift and Sure ...
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Education review comes out for ‘incremental’ reform
Legal education and training is not ‘fundamentally broken’ but is failing to ensure consistent levels of quality across the profession, a long-awaited pan-profession report says today.
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Opportunities in Colombia
Colombia: isn’t it a bit dicey? Lawyers in Latin America’s fourth-largest economy and deepest-rooted democracy could be forgiven for showing irritation at the inevitable question. Invariably, the reply is ‘things have changed’.
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Trainee retention rates rise at top City firms
The proportion of trainees winning places at top firms has increased this year to an average of 83%, figures for the September intake show. Magic circle firm Slaughter and May reported the highest retention rate, 90%, offering placements to 46 trainees. Rival Clifford Chance said 80% of its 60 trainees ...
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My legal life: Christopher Murray
Both of my parents were in the medical profession but as a small child I remember listening to my mother talking about the iniquity of capital punishment – prompted by the Reginald Christie trial – and the likelihood that Timothy Evans had been wrongly hanged for a murder Christie had ...