Last 3 months headlines – Page 1197
-
News
Legal reforms: call for consistency
I listened with particular interest to justice secretary Chris Grayling’s interview on the Today programme about the new reforms of judicial review, which are aimed at making sure only genuine cases receive a hearing. The interviewer John Humphrys quite rightly compared the new changes to a ‘no win, no fee’ ...
-
News
Malaysian abuses
As a native-born Malaysian living in the UK, I was ashamed and distressed to learn about the reported treatment of defendants and assaults on lawyers trying to assist them after the April 2012 protest incident. In the 21st century this human rights abuse by a UN member state must not ...
-
News
Dog-eat-dog profession
Am I alone in thinking, after qualifying 40 years ago, that what was then a profession which justified and duly received public respect has degenerated into a dog-eat-dog environment? We already know that larger firms and conveyancing factories sell their souls to estate agents, developers and ...
-
News
Divorce advice
Many years ago at a local meeting of either Relate or the former Solicitors Family Law Association (now Resolution), I proposed to an eminent judge that government health warnings appeared on divorce petitions. The learned judge basically concurred. Many problems arise or are exacerbated by the ...
-
News
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.
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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? ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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.
-
News
‘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.
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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, ...
-
News
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.
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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’. ...
-
News
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 ...