Obiter – Page 118
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News
Memory lane
The Law Society’s Gazette, July 1963 World peace through law As this issue of the Gazette is published, the First World Conference on World Peace through the Rule of Law will have reached its concluding sessions in Athens. The first task of the world conference was to try to formulate ...
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Nothing for Nothing
The news that more solicitors are turning to crime to keep their practices afloat is indeed terrible, writes James Morton. For far too long solicitors have neglected their businesses at the expense of clients and this altruism has clearly gone too far. But what can be done to reverse what ...
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Clutching at Straw
If there is one thing you can say about Jack Straw, it is that he is regimentally strict about declaring his expenses. In the past 15 months, therefore, we know he was paid £48,000 for speaking engagements at home and abroad (this included £20,000 for a speech at the University ...
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Dig the new breed
Manchester criminal solicitor Nick Freeman, aka Mr Loophole, has a new breed of client: the Staffordshire bull terrier. Freeman, renowned for helping celebrities escape motoring convictions, aims to rehabilitate the image of the dog following an incident involving a Staffie suspected of biting off another dog’s head. Freeman has owned ...
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Water Divining
Yes, it’s the time of year when legal aid solicitors shed a tear for colleagues at the City firms as they announce their annual results. In general the form with these announcements is that the worse the results, the less assistance the press is given to report them. So hats ...
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Appeal to ‘your majesty’ that paid off
Even in the midst of their fight against further cuts, legal aid lawyers allow themselves an evening to celebrate achievements. Yes, last week saw the 11th Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards – the legal aid equivalent of the Oscars, though with fewer tears. The glittering evening at Shakespeare’s ...
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Guess the bank: a fun game for all the family
Obiter had been worried that litigators and expert witnesses weren’t having enough fun these days. Reassuring, then, to find that inventive playfulness is alive and kicking for those involved in the financial services litigation over allegedly mis-sold interest-rate hedging products. One attendee at last week’s Gazette roundtable confessed: ‘We have ...
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Simulated insecurity
A break-out session at last week’s SRA event on risk involved solicitors, consultants and the Gazette’s own reporter voting with Millionaire-style keypads on a series of options for the future of a hypothetical mid-sized firm. The group started out risk-averse, opting out of investing in a service advising on Scottish ...
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Raising an eyebrow or two
At Obiter Towers we could barely bring ourselves to watch last week’s Apprentice, shorn as it was of Dynamo Legal founder ‘I’m from Wales’ Alex Mills. We’ll be especially disappointed by his absence from this week’s interview stage, if his final exchange with Lord Sugar was anything to go by. ...
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Centre 70 volunteers
Some years ago the Gazette kindly printed a letter from me about Centre 70, which provides free advice on housing, benefits, debt and other issues, serving a wide area of south London. As a result we recruited someone to join our team of volunteer lawyers who provide free legal advice ...
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News100 years old and still on the roll
Early birthday greetings to George EC Smith, admitted in 1927, and who next week celebrates his 100th birthday, still on the roll. According to his son Charles (also a solicitor), Smith practised law with his uncle, Henry Parfitt, who admitted him into partnership in 1948 at Minet May & Co ...
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The Lawn Society
To Lincoln’s Inn for Obiter’s annual walk on the sacred sod, thanks to the 45th Legal Charities Garden Party. As usual, the rain held off, the company stimulated and, once the Gazette newsdesk had remembered whose round it was, the champagne flowed.
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Wielding the willow
English cricketers have had about as much success as English lawyers at conquering conditions in India. Now the two challenges can combine for the Lawyers Cricket World Cup, scheduled for Delhi this October. The barristers have already formed a team to travel out, but solicitors have yet to take up ...
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NewsWhose side is he on?
We all know the lord chancellor doesn’t greatly care what lawyers think of his plans for legal aid, but Obiter thought he might have some sympathy for the views of victims of crime. Didn’t his party’s 2010 manifesto say something about being ‘on the side of victims’? Given the lack ...
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Lawyering through the medium of dance
You would have thought Craig Holt, the mastermind behind the QualitySolicitors brand, would have enough on his plate keeping his 250-plus flock of branches in check. But apparently the pioneering brand whizzkid has time for a little covert calling as well. Holt and QS have been rather quiet in recent ...
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Where there’s a will, there’s a… won’t
Heartening news of a 29% productivity leap from our beloved consumer watchdog. The 2013 annual report of the Legal Services Consumer Panel runs to 36 electronic pages, up from 28 last year. That’s not all. Inside, Obiter reads that since 2011-12 the panel has ‘almost doubled the speeches and presentations ...
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A plum position
This week’s gardening tip from Obiter: tootle on your clarinet to encourage soft fruits to mature. The tip came via Worcestershire plum charmer Paul Johnson (pictured), who also happens to be a partner at Pershore firm Thomson & Bancks. His role, in between county court and employment tribunal cases, is ...
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Memory lane
The Law Society’s Gazette, 22 June 1988Sex discrimination should not be a disciplinary offence, says YSG Recent recommendations by a special Law Society working party that discrimination against women solicitors should be made a disciplinary offence and tax relief should be available for child care expenses, have been rejected by ...
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News
Memory lane
The Law Society’s Gazette, June 1963Criminal legal aid The interim report on legal aid in criminal appeals published recently by ‘Justice’ was followed almost immediately by the final report of the working party on legal aid in criminal proceedings. Both reports describe the existing facilities quite ...