Last 3 months headlines – Page 1171
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Civil strife
With the proposed strike action in respect of criminal legal aid reforms seemingly an agreed and positive form of protest, it saddens me that similar steps were not taken in advance of the cuts made to civil legal aid.
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Family arbitration: award show
I have reviewed with interest Lucinda Ferguson’s letter ‘"Final and binding" awards’. Lucinda refers to my ‘Family law arbitration wins’ article as ‘misleading in one respect, namely that "awards" made under the Scheme are "final and binding"’. I never stated that an award in arbitration usurps ...
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Job centred
This week I was talking to a solicitor friend in another practice whose senior partner retired. On his departure, my friend’s colleague said: ‘On qualifying as a solicitor I joined a profession; on retiring as a solicitor I am leaving a job.’ Says it all doesn’t it? ...
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Learning more about contracted public defence services
In the summer of 1998, I visited the US to look at contracted public defender schemes. This was triggered by the prediction that they would be the ultimate destination of the Legal Aid Board’s franchising initiative. Public defender horror stories, particularly in the south of the US, are easy to ...
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Tendering: grim precedent
So the Ministry of Justice is having to dip into its – that is to say ‘our’ – pocket to bail out a cack-handed scheme for interpreter provision wished upon the criminal justice system supposedly to save money. Who would have thought it? Well, anyone ...
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Law Society Yacht Club
The Law Society Yacht Club has been inactive for a number of years. However, some members are hoping to revive it and to that end we are holding a general meeting on 5 June at El Vinos, 47 Fleet Street, London. The meeting starts at 6.45pm. If any members require ...
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Immigration clampdown ‘danger’ to legal sector
The future prosperity of Britain’s world-leading law firms could be jeopardised by headline-grabbing immigration reforms, the Law Society has warned.
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‘Don’t ditch quality,’ says Desmond Hudson
Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson has warned firms to avoid a ‘race to the bottom’ as they seek to survive and prosper in a tough market.
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Wragge & Co takes axe to legal support jobs
Top-30 firm Wragge & Co has confirmed that up to 30 jobs could go after a review of its legal support services. The announcement was made after the firm’s board proposed a new structure for back-office functions. The new structure includes a ...
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Call for solicitors to use British Sign Language
Research has highlighted the need for solicitors to learn British Sign Language (BSL) so that deaf people have the same access to legal advice as their hearing counterparts. The research, published last week to coincide with Deaf Awareness Week, found that 85% of deaf people prefer ...
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Foreign case influx at commercial court
Foreign litigants are increasingly dominating the Commercial Court of England and Wales, research on cases over the past five years has found. The study Who uses the Commercial Court?, by the Portland communications firm, reviewed all 705 judgments from the court between March 2008 and ...
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Coalition reforms threaten to jeopardise English law’s peerless status
Winston Churchill described Russia as a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’, and the fall of Soviet communism has hardly invalidated that description. We refer you to the fast-growing state-run global news service RT (Russia Today). For some ‘in the west’, RT is a sort of anti-Fox News, ...
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The NHS constitution can bring about real improvements
by Alicia Alinia, a lawyer with Slater & Gordon and a trustee of Pain UK In my capacity as a trustee of Pain UK, I was invited to attend a recent all-party parliamentary committee session on the NHS constitution.
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Seconds out, round one
It’s not quite the Varsity Match, but Obiter is enjoying watching a classic rivalry ripening between law schools BPP and the University of Law. Especially as this one is underpinned by dog-eats-dog commercial imperatives. The latest round began with the elevation of the College of ...
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Bloodsucking lawyer?
Obiter was delighted that self-professed ‘new breed of businessman’ Alex Mills survived the initial Apprentice cull last week. The founder of self-styled ‘superbrand’ Dynamo Legal kept a relatively low profile in the first two shows, despite telling one of his teammates to ‘shut up you silly shit’. ...
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Combination punchlines
Obiter’s application for a research grant to study the impact of combined firm names on perceptions of the profession is still languishing in the regulator’s inbox, but in the meantime here are a few contributions from our readers. Jonathan Davidson of Liverpool firm QualitySolicitors Jackson ...
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You’ll have had your tea
Last month, I received a certificate congratulating me on 50 years of loyal service to the profession. It was something I considered ironic since I spent much of those 50 years unsuccessfully devising ways to give up the law. Of my admission ceremony I can ...
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Judicial tension over costs budgeting
The final report on the costs budgeting pilot, which was published last week, gives an interesting insight into a battle going on within the judiciary. As is known, the Commercial Court managed to win itself an exemption from costs budgeting some time ago by convincing Lord Justice Jackson that, in ...
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Legal education move by embattled Co-op
The Co-operative Group’s legal services arm is to set up a ‘learning academy’ later this year to give legal training to aspiring lawyers who cannot afford university.
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Will ABSs be allowed to cross EU borders?
A report was published by the European Commission this week, keenly awaited by dedicated followers of European legal fashion. It gives important insights into lawyer cross-border mobility in Europe.