Last 3 months headlines – Page 1186
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Stop fathers drifting out of children’s lives
You will have to excuse me for not sharing the optimism of the Kingsley Napley partners about the Children and Families Bill in their article ‘Changing perceptions’. It was published a week after your magazine carried a front-page article: ‘Unpaid overtime costs lawyers £14k’. As Frances O’Grady said, the hours ...
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Iranian women in exile
I recently returned from Paris where I spoke on behalf of the Law Society at the International Women’s Day conference in support of Iranian women in exile. There are 1,000 Iranian women held in two camps in Iraq, where they have been refugees for 25 years. They are the residents ...
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Pay up, please, lawyers
Congratulations to local government lawyers for securing from the Solicitors Regulation Authority a rule change allowing them to charge local charities for legal services. Self-evidently, this is a commercial income-generating arrangement, not a philanthropic endeavour. In the spirit of a level playing field, presumably lawyers ...
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Bias concerns
Joshua Rozenberg’s article ‘Balancing act’ (4 March) discusses Lady Hale’s lecture on equality in the judiciary and the question of ‘positive discrimination in senior judicial appointments’. The emphasis appears to be on the appointment of more women, but there is little discussion of African, Caribbean and Asian applicants.
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Why the fuss over RTA?
I read that Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson sees the changes in low-value RTA litigation as ‘serious.’ He notes ‘all the spurious talk about fraudulent claims’. I can see his point but, having defended fraudulent insurance claims for the past 16 years, I can assure ...
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In the loop
I would like to thank your team for the Daily Gazette updates. I read them after work on my iPad and your articles have helped me plan various strategies for the survival of our practice, while the personal injury and civil litigation worlds seem to be collapsing all around us. ...
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Society wins apology for legal aid injustice
The Law Society has declared itself vindicated after the Legal Services Commission apologised for ‘maladministration’ that caused ‘injustice’ to legal aid solicitors. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman upheld a complaint made by the Society in 2008 that the commission failed both to run a recoupment ...
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Paper jam at the MoJ
If the legal work ever dries up, may Obiter suggest a job in printer repairs? Call-outs from the Ministry of Justice alone will surely make a career change worthwhile. According to our freedom of information request, the number of ‘printer-related incidents’ reported in 2012 in courts ...
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Judges ‘ill-prepared’ for Jackson
Judges in the vanguard of the post-Jackson costs management era will go into April armed with just 4.5 hours of training, a quarterly newsletter and a podcast. In a response to a freedom of information request, the Judicial College confirmed that all 728 salaried civil judges ...
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Shakespeare's play on words
Northampton solicitor Karen Shakespeare gets our search for apt merger names off to a good start. ‘If DR Solicitors (Guildford), Heald Solicitors (Milton Keynes) and Patient Lawyers (Irwin Mitchell’s clinical negligence section) ever got together it would be DR Heald Patient,’ she writes. And if Street Solicitors (Bridgnorth, Shropshire) signed ...
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The joke's on... Grayling?
Obiter’s desk clock is steadily counting down ‘til J-Day, 1 April 2013, when the main chunk of the Jackson civil litigation reforms come into force. That’s not the only notable event of the day: 1 April is also the birthday of our lord chancellor, Chris Grayling. He was born on ...
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Young dreams
So, what do you want to be when you grow up? According to an official survey of the nation’s children, among 13- and 14-year-olds the most common answer is actor (5.6%) - followed closely by lawyer (4.4%). However, as we grow older and wiser, the stars ...
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LLPs set for tax avoidance probe
Law firms operating as LLPs could be caught in a planned crackdown on avoidance of national insurance payments. In last week’s budget, chancellor George Osborne announced plans to consult on ‘removing the presumption of self-employment’ from limited liability partnerships. The budget ...
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Delivering the verdict
The mess in which the first Vicky Pryce jury found itself really doesn’t match up to the jury that, not so many years ago, used a Ouija board to reach a verdict in a late-night session in a Brighton hotel, writes James Morton. Nevertheless, it ...
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Firm explores online advice to defendants
One of the country’s largest criminal defence firms is exploring how legal advice could be given to clients online. Mike Rainford (pictured), head of business crime at north-west firm Burton Copeland, told the Gazette this week that the firm is in discussions with IT companies to ...
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Burden of proof on firms after fee ban
Personal injury firms will be expected to retain records and management information from next Monday to prove that payments for cases do not fall within the referral fee ban. Definitive rules for the ban will be published when the SRA Handbook is changed to coincide with ...
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SFO questioned over use of Slaughter and May
Shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry has raised questions about the Serious Fraud Office’s decision to retain a magic circle firm to defend potentially the most expensive case in its history. Attorney general Dominic Grieve confirmed earlier this month that the SFO had brought in Slaughter and ...
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Watchdog may survive ‘bonfire of the quangos’
Government plans to throw a legal watchdog on to its ‘bonfire of the quangos’ have suffered a blow after the House of Commons justice committee opposed the move. The committee said there is not a strong enough case for the abolition of the Administrative Justice ...
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Pathway to Law scheme boosted by £1.2m grant
An educational charity has secured a £1.2m grant to help 1,200 sixth formers from less privileged backgrounds pursue a career in the law. The Legal Education Foundation has given £1.2m to the Sutton Trust to fund its Pathways to Law programme, open to low- and middle-income ...