Law Society Gazette

9 November 2015

Decision reshapes contract law

An unsuccessful challenge to an £85 parking fine which reached the Supreme Court will make it harder for consumers to challenge hefty charges when a contract is breached. In Beavis v ParkingEye, the court ruled that the charge was not unfair and that penalties for overstaying are a ‘normal feature of parking contracts’.

3 November 2005

Pressured by ‘sexual bullying’

Trainee solicitors are being ‘blackmailed into complying with sexual advances’ and asked to perform menial tasks such as cleaning lavatories, a report on calls received by the Trainee Solicitors Group helpline revealed this week. 

6 November 1985

Rights of audience

The Law Society has been requested in a letter from the Lord Chancellor’s Department to submit its views on how the government should implement, so far as the High Court is concerned, a recommendation by the Benson Commission that solicitors should, in respect of formal or unopposed matters, enjoy rights of audience in any court. 

12 November 1975

New EEC directive

On 1 September, the EEC Council of Ministers sent to the European Parliament a proposed new directive on lawyers’ services. The latest draft is an improvement on its predecessor, but is still based on the fallacy that legal professions in the community are identical, not parallel. The Society’s representatives in conjunction with the bar are continuing to hammer away at this basic point. 

November 1945

Inventions made in Germany since 1938

The government has decided that inventions made in Germany shall not be allowed to form the basis of valid applications for the grant of patents, or for registration of designs in the United Kingdom.

Topics