Last 3 months headlines – Page 1166

  • News

    Costs

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Order for costs – Conditional fee agreement – Costs-only proceedings – Success fee Patterson v Ministry of Defence: Queen's Bench Division (Mr Justice Males (Sitting with Assessors)): 12 October 2012 ...

  • News

    Extradition

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    European arrest warrant – Respondent judicial authority issuing warrant Nikitins v Presecutor General's Office, Republic of Latvia: Queen's Bench Division, Administrative Court (London) (Mr Justice Ouseley): 25 July 2012 The ...

  • News

    Employment

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Holidays with pay – Employee airline pilots only receiving basic salary by way of remuneration for annual leave British Airways Plc v Williams and others: Supreme Court (Lords Hope DP, Walker, Mance, Clarke and Sumption SCJJ): 17 October 2012 ...

  • News

    Information demands lay siege to confidentiality

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Futurologists of the legal profession concentrate chiefly on the impact of technology and alternative structures when predicting what will happen next. There is an assumption that the activities of lawyers will continue as before, but delivered in a new way. However, I want to describe another trend which is beginning ...

  • News

    ‘Diplomates’ fuel surplus debate

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    In his letter to the Gazette, Ben Hope was quite right to say that it is very difficult for ‘diplomates’ – those who have gained the diploma in legal practice – to obtain training contracts. Unfortunately, he confuses matters by calling them ‘law graduates’ and goes on to argue that ...

  • News

    Demolition of the welfare state

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    I write in connection with your interview with shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan. It is a shame that he failed to mention the impact of the impending legal aid cuts on our migrant communities and foreign nationals within the UK prison system.

  • News

    How to avoid a court crash

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    All practitioners in family law will recognise the scene: it is 9.45am and already the small waiting room in the county court is heaving with barristers, solicitors and parties to the proceedings. Often the morning session blurs into the afternoon and ‘justice’ is not swift. What ...

  • News

    Low legal aid fee ‘scandalous’

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Karen Todner is right to be concerned for the future of publicly funded criminal defence firms. My firm recently represented a 13-year-old boy arrested on suspicion of murder. A qualified solicitor spent nine hours and 42 minutes on a Friday evening and Saturday advising him, with ...

  • News

    The need to protect privacy

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Serious public interest issues have been played out in the court and the media over the past few months. I write, of course, about the royal buttocks of Prince Harry, the regal breasts of his sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge and the extra-marital activities of the former England football manager ...

  • News

    Commercial property

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    The report of E.ON UK plc v Gilesports Limited [2012] EWHC 2172 bears reading because there are a number of interesting points, but in this article I will focus on only one – how long is a reasonable time to consent to an assignment?

  • News

    London care pilot to make £1m saving

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    A pilot to speed up care cases has more than halved the time taken to resolve matters and is on track to save the public purse £1m a year. In April, three London boroughs – Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham – began ...

  • News

    US plea to curb third-party funding

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    A US lobby group has called for immediate government regulation of third-party litigation funding. The increasing influence of third-party funders has caused controversy on both sides of the Atlantic. Both the US, and England and Wales, currently have voluntary regulation, but there have been repeated calls ...

  • News

    Divorce ruling branded ‘cheat’s charter’

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Lawyers have branded as a ‘cheat’s charter’ a Court of Appeal landmark ruling that an oil tycoon need not hand over to his wife £17.5m in assets held by his companies. In Petrodel Resources Ltd & Ors v Prest & Ors [2012] EWCA Civ 1395 the ...

  • News

    Goldsmith warning on confidentiality

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Lawyer-client confidentiality is under authoritarian attack on several fronts, threatening the future of the profession, the secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe has warned.

  • News

    Aftermath of panel reviews

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    It is said that there are more questions on the application form to be a member of a lender’s conveyancing panel than there are to join MI5. Whether or not that is true, it is clear that if you want to do a good job for your homebuying clients, and ...

  • News

    Mediators go for ‘gold’ in Hong Kong

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Demand for mediation services in Hong Kong – which adopted Woolf-style obligatory mediation in 2010 – has prompted the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) to create a panel of 22 mediators in the region. Mark Side, partner and head of dispute resolution at Tanner ...

  • News

    How To: stop domestic violence

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Beyond the headlines that we see all too often in the papers, domestic violence is a hidden epidemic – statistics tell us that one in four women and one in six men will experience domestic violence in their adult lives. Some readers will already be very familiar with these statistics. ...

  • News

    SRA ‘confident’ over PC renewals

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority has expressed ‘confidence’ that this year’s practising certificate renewal season, which began today, will pass more smoothly than last year’s troubled process. 2011 was the first year that the SRA attempted online renewal and payments, through its mySRA portal. Well-publicised difficulties with ...

  • News

    Human endeavour subject to the principles of commerce

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Soon there will be fruit machines in the lobby of every courtroom in England and Wales. Three cherries wins you a paralegal; three pineapples a senior partner. Pull the handle and take your chance.

  • News

    Civil litigators could consider advocacy

    2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

    by Rachel Rothwell, editor of Litigation Funding magazine I recently attended a conference held by the Law Society’s Civil Justice Section – Litigators: survive and thrive. One key message was aimed at personal injury lawyers who – with the Jackson timebomb ticking and set for detonation ...