The Law Society Gazette, 10 February 2005

Bar Council chief warns Clementi may lead to ‘creeping bureaucracy’

The leaders of the two main branches of the UK legal profession last week highlighted their continuing rifts over last year’s Clementi report, as the proposals were labelled as potentially allowing ‘creeping bureaucracy’ to crawl over lawyers in England and Wales. The new chairman of the bar council re-emphasised his organisation’s opposition to the prospect of external ownership of either traditional law firms or the proposed legal disciplinary partnerships.

February 1965

The Solicitors’ Bill

The Solicitors’ Bill was introduced in the House of Lords just before Christmas by Lord Tangley (who as Sir Edwin Herbert was president of the Law Society in 1956/57). Powers are sought in the bill to regulate the education, training and admission not only of articled clerks but of prospective solicitors also, under the proposed training scheme, either concurrently with or in substitution for service under articles.

Magna Carta Anniversary

A commemoration service to mark the 750th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta is to be held in St Paul’s Cathedral on June 10th, 1965, at which Her Majesty the Queen may be present. Two hundred solicitors and their ladies will be invited to this service.

February 1945

Post-war housing

In reviewing post-war housing plans, at a meeting of the members of the Auctioneers and Estate Agents Institute recently, Mr Willink, the Minister of Health, said that the approximate number of additional houses required, immediately after all our men were home, so that each separate family wanting a separate house might have one, was roughly 1,000,000. Although the government intended to expand the building industry to 1,250,000 men, there was no prospect of a building industry of the size required before the end of the war with Japan.

February 1915

Minutes of the special general meeting

The president, Lieut-Col Sir Charles Longmore KCB, in the chair. The president, who was in uniform, said that his military duties had occupied his time since his appointment as President of the Society, but that he much regretted his consequent absence.

He stated that, so far as the Society’s records showed, there were 1,831 solicitors serving with the forces and 981 articled clerks, making a total of 2,812.

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