A stroll down Gazette memory lane

Law Society Gazette 22 April 2013

Barristers to ‘strike’ over legal aid reform

Crown court hearings were set to be disrupted as the Gazette went to press in the first wave of militant action against the government’s planned reforms to criminal legal aid. Criminal solicitors and barristers have united in their opposition to the proposed reforms, which include price competitive tendering.

17 April 2003

Our flexible friend

The call for more flexible working has been heard for some years, yet little seems to have happened. This week, Cherie Booth QC attacked the ‘macho’ culture of many law firms and warned that a failure to adapt will force women out of the legal profession.

21 April 1993

Solicitors blasted on costs

A fresh bid by the Law Society to make solicitors disclose costs in advance has been given added impetus with an attack launched by John Taylor, junior minister at the Lord Chancellor’s Department, on ‘sharp practices’ within the profession. Too often the profession was asking for a blank cheque, he said.

18 April 1983

Solicitor

From time to time we deplore that we ever began to call an officer of the Supreme Court a ‘solicitor’. How odd that title must sound to our American cousins is illustrated in an appeal case in Arizona which reads ‘the plaintiff-wife worked for X co as a telephone sales solicitor...’. The Law Society Practice Rules of course prohibit us from acting as such solicitors.

April 1923

Poor Persons Procedure

The Council were informed that solicitors ‘had shown such marked disinclination to undertake the work’ that on 5 September 1922 there were only sufficient solicitors available to deal with about 35 London cases between then and the end of the year. Under these circumstances we fear that we can only contemplate the failure of the existing arrangements before the end of the legal year.

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