Last 3 months headlines – Page 1210

  • News

    Personal injury calculation

    14 January 2013

    The standard rate of interest on general damages for pain and suffering and loss of amenities in personal injury cases was fixed at 2% a year by the House of Lords in Birkett v Hayes [1982] 1 WLR 816; [1982] 2 All ER 70. This was confirmed as appropriate by ...

  • News

    Evidence

    14 January 2013

    Admissibility – Criminal proceedings – Evidence obtained through covert surveillance Kinloch (AP) v Her Majesty's Advocate (Scotland): Supreme Court (Lords Hope DP, Mance, Kerr and Reed SCJJ, Lady Hale): 19 December 2012 ...

  • News

    Development on town and village greens

    14 January 2013

    The last commercial property column looked at the manner in which town and village green applications create hurdles for development. One aspect of the Commons Act 2006 makes life particularly difficult for developers.

  • News

    Decisions affecting litigants in person

    14 January 2013

    Two recent decisions of the Court of Appeal have affirmed that the provisions of Civil Procedure Rule 27.11 and 39.3 should be interpreted rigorously. More interesting, however, is the fact that at a time when the courts are likely to see more and more ‘self-representing parties’, the decisions suggest that ...

  • News

    My legal life: Sarah Harman

    14 January 2013

    My three sisters and I were all herded into the College of Law whether we liked it or not. Our mum was determined that her four rebellious daughters should get good professional qualifications, which she herself only managed to achieve with enormous difficulty in late middle age.

  • News

    Roundtable: market makers

    14 January 2013

    A difficult economy combined with far-reaching changes in legal regulation has given the UK’s dominant legal market, England and Wales, the feel of a dramatic landscape heading into 2013. Commentators have taken to reaching for an impressive range of cliches and metaphors – from ‘perfect storm’ to ‘brave new world’, ...

  • News

    Law leads the way over living wage

    14 January 2013

    City law firms are leading the way in paying low-paid workers an independently assessed ‘living wage’ rather than the minimum wage, a Gazette investigation has revealed. A ‘living wage’ is currently £8.55 an hour in London and £7.45 elsewhere. The minimum wage is £6.19. ...

  • News

    Solicitors have ‘little to fear’ from Barco

    14 January 2013

    Solicitors’ representatives and sector analysts have played down the likely impact of the bar’s latest move to attract clients directly. They were commenting after the Financial Services Authority approved a scheme allowing barristers to sidestep the current prohibition on holding client money, a major barrier ...

  • News

    Legal apprenticeships no threat, says CILEx

    14 January 2013

    The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, which traditionally champions a vocational route into the legal profession, has insisted that it does not feel threatened by government plans to introduce apprenticeships as an alternative to law degrees. Diane Burleigh (pictured), the institute’s chief executive, was responding to ...

  • News

    Legal aid warning over contract allocation

    14 January 2013

    Legal aid firms may go out of business as a result of the allocation of work for new civil legal aid contracts, representative groups have warned. The Legal Services Commission notified firms last week of the outcome of tenders for family, housing and debt, and immigration, ...

  • News

    JLD chair claims trainees need more protection

    14 January 2013

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority is failing to protect trainee solicitors from exploitation and threats, the new chair of the Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) has claimed. Heather Iqbal-Rayner (pictured) has drafted a letter to SRA chief executive Antony Townsend in which she claims that the regulator refuses ...

  • News

    Chancery Lane must not pull punches

    14 January 2013

    I understand that the president of the Law Society has called for a freeze on civil justice reform, until the effects have been properly researched. This is welcome news. As usual, the Law Society is being civilised and reasonable. But in modern Britain, how effective is ...

  • News

    Registry posts mixed signals

    14 January 2013

    The Gazette reported in December that the Land Registry has launched the web version of its electronic document registration service, allowing practitioners to lodge documents electronically, thus saving time and postage costs.

  • News

    Dealing with negligence

    14 January 2013

    I read with interest the complaints clinic by Adam Sampson in December. It seems that the three headings ‘Time limits’, ‘Financial limits’ and ‘Prospective customers’ sum up the problems that solicitors have with the Legal Ombudsman.

  • News

    Hefty PC fee stuns bank

    14 January 2013

    As a self-employed consultant solicitor representing serving prisoners in the south-west, I was staggered to discover that this year it would cost me a hefty £344 to renew my practising certificate. My bank appeared to agree, as the payment was immediately identified by Santander as a suspicious transaction. ...

  • News

    David defeats Goliath

    14 January 2013

    by David Dixon, a senior lecturer at Cardiff Law School who teaches on the LPC and GDL The third week of November was a momentous week in the history of Wales.

  • News

    As easy as A-B-S: extra tools in your armoury

    14 January 2013

    It is nearly 10 months since the Solicitors Regulation Authority approved its first alternative business structures and over a year since the regulator was granted permission to do so. How has it been for you? There’s a tendency among some Gazette readers to blame the process ...

  • News

    Blighty sets the tone in Chancery Lane hanging

    14 January 2013

    Obiter has noticed that every so often the art world experiences a paradigm shift – think of the Dutch noticing how perspective worked, or the day Tracey Emin decided not to make her bed. Likewise closer to home, where the Law Society Art Group is ...

  • News

    Praying for absolution

    14 January 2013

    A two-hour parliamentary committee hearing on banking regulation last week threw up some interestingly different approaches to keeping professionals in line. First up on the topic was Antony Townsend, chief executive of the SRA, who explained that: ‘Those we regulate do look at sanctions and the risk of public identification ...

  • News

    Crown succession approach out of kilter

    14 January 2013

    Governments are often accused of legislating in haste and repenting at leisure. One such example is the Succession to the Crown Bill, backed by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and to be debated in the Commons next week.