Last 3 months headlines – Page 1144
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Wall treat
A solicitor’s office in the City. Brewer, the office manager, sees pretty new 19-year-old intern Pat as fair game. Meanwhile, cynical Miss Janus’s romantic life seems to be over as she is jilted by her lover at the desperate age of 35... Sound familiar? That’s the ...
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An employee of myself?
I was pleased to read Daniel Sproull’s letter in last week’s Gazette. It has spurred me to put my head over the parapet as well. I am a 67-year-old sole practitioner with no employees. I completed part one of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s diversity survey thinking I would hear no ...
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Green in the dock with technology
Damian Green, minister for criminal justice, tries out new courtroom technology on a visit to the Crown Prosecution Service in Maidstone, Kent. Under the digital strategy of the Law Officers’ Departments, published last month, the CPS is to introduce ‘full digital working’ by December.
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Unpaid court fines still add up to £600m
The government failed to make any significant impression in the £600m outstanding debt from court fines during the past financial year. Justice minister Helen Grant revealed on Friday that outstanding impositions stood at £1.8bn by the end of April 2012.
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Lobbying by lawyers – a prickly path
I often avoid writing about sensitive topics, out of cowardice. One of these has been the hyper-sensitive subject of governmental lobbying by lawyers, which is of interest both in the UK and in the EU.
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Justice secretary questions hiring of QCs in criminal trials
Taxpayer funding for criminal defence should to go to less-expensive lawyers than QCs, Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, said today. Grayling used an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to criticise the way the annual £1bn criminal legal aid budget is spent, particularly ...
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Relocation of children
When ferries were the only means of travelling abroad a national newspaper carried the headline: ‘Fog in Channel; Continent Cut Off’. Travel may be easier today, but there remains a legal obstruction to some parents’ departure from these shores. F (Child) [2012] EWCA Civ 1364 is the Court of Appeal’s ...
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Memory lane
The Law Society’s Gazette, January 1913 Official shorthand writers in courts of justice At the Annual General Meeting of the Society a resolution was passed referring it to the Council to consider and report whether it would be desirable that official shorthand ...
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What is to be done over convention?
My father – in my mind because, aged 93, he has just died – used to take me to rugby internationals at Murrayfield in the 1960s. These were dominated by much kicking for positional advantage. Games were, depending on your point of vantage, fascinatingly tactical or grindingly boring. That experience ...
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CILEx announces advanced legal apprenticeship
The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) is to introduce a new advanced apprenticeship in legal services which it says will provide a springboard to qualification as a lawyer. The Level 3 Advanced Apprenticeship in Legal is being developed in partnership with Skills for Justice and ...
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Supreme Court stars on YouTube
The Supreme Court’s decision to post videos of judgment summaries on YouTube from tomorrow is great news. It will open up the court to a new audience and build a useful resource for students. As an imperfect practitioner in the art of reducing complex legal arguments to a paragraph or ...
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Care home fees
Not care home fees, but tensions between Henry II and his archbishop led a character in TS Eliot’s Murder In The Cathedral to ask: ‘What peace can be found/To grow between the hammer and the anvil?’ But while a dispute over Newcastle City Council’s approach to care home fees has ...
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Taxi for the cab rank rule
The barristers’ cab rank rule is ‘redundant’ and should be abolished, according to a report published today by the Legal Services Board. Authors Professor John Flood and Professor Morten Hviid suggest that the rule is ‘regularly breached’, and serves ‘no clear purpose’. They claim its ...
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SRA spurns pleas to approve post-Jackson business models
Regulators will reject requests to pre-approve business models that may flout the impending ban on referral fees. The Solicitors Regulation Authority has confirmed it will not draw up detailed rules ahead of the ban coming into force in April, despite requests from members of the profession. ...
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COLP/COFA test failed by over 1,000
Convicted criminals and undeclared bankrupts were among the people nominated by law firms to be their compliance officers, it has emerged. The Solicitors Regulation Authority today revealed that more than 1,200 nominees failed an automatic verification exercise to check their suitability to be firms’ self-policing staff. ...
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Legal professional privilege only for lawyers, Supreme Court rules
The Supreme Court ruled today that legal professional privilege (LPP) applies only to qualified lawyers – solicitors and barristers. The eagerly awaited decision, by a majority of 5:2, maintains the existing certainty about the scope of LPP. It confirms that ‘there is no doubt that ...
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Grayling takes aim at the bar
After shooting civil legal aid to smithereens the government now has the criminal bar in its sights. Twice in the past week lord chancellor and justice secretary Chris Grayling has indicated that there is not enough money for criminal legal aid - and cuts have to be made.
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Reform chief predicts 'sweaty palms' over costs budgets
Judges and lawyers will adapt to new costs management rules but the process may take some time, according to the senior judge charged with implementing the Jackson reforms. Lord Justice Ramsey, who has taken over responsibility for the task from Lord Justice Jackson, admitted there will ...
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Secret courts ‘unjust’ warns Law Society
Extending secret courts to ordinary civil justice cases would see the UK ‘stoop to the level of repressive regimes’, the Law Society warns today. In a letter to members of the Public Bill Committee for the Justice and Security Bill, Chancery Lane ...
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Eversheds sheds up to 166 in strategic restructuring
Eversheds plans to axe up to 166 staff across its international network - nearly half of them lawyers - as part of a management and office restructuring. Among those leaving will be Nick Seddon, who joined Eversheds to head the Asia region in 2008 when ...