Last 3 months headlines – Page 1212
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SRA to look again at vexed issue of race
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has pledged to carry out a second review of allegations of racial discrimination by the regulator against black and minority ethnic (BME) lawyers. The first review, carried out in 2008 by Lord Ouseley, former chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, concluded ...
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Outcry over family court closure plan
A group of 160 leading family lawyers and social workers has written to senior judges raising concerns over the proposed closure of a court rated a ‘centre of excellence’. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is considering plans to close the Inner London and City Family Proceedings ...
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Canadian firm among .law domain applicants
A Canadian firm is seeking rights to the suffix .law on website addresses instead of current ‘top level domains’ such as .com. Merchant Law Group LLP is listed among eight applicants for the suffixes .law or .lawyer in a new list of potential domains issued ...
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Mortgage funding change
Mortgage funds must be transferred directly from the lender’s to the seller’s solicitor where conveyancers act only for the lender under new instructions published by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).
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‘Huge mistake’ in College of Law exam paper
The College of Law is investigating an apparent error in one of its exam papers after students claimed that one question was impossible to answer. A student in the second year of the Legal Practice Course at the College of Law in London’s Bloomsbury contacted ...
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Let things get worse
I refer to the news item ‘City aid sought for post-LASPO project’. The scheme intends to seek the help of City firms to address the lack of funding in the legal aid sector. Although the initiative is well meaning, should the Law Society get involved? To me the answer is ...
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Party politics
Ronnie Fox is quite right to say that Law Society specialist committees should be wary of being drawn into party politics. The employment law committee does not take sides in the employment relationship, acknowledging that the Society's membership comprises both employers and employees, and includes a number of the kind ...
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Reputation is key
As a solicitor of over 50 years’ qualification, I have a very different take from that expressed by 360 Legal Group’s Viv Williams in a recent blog. Mr Williams is the latest in a long line of doom-mongers.
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Right prescription
The arguments of Junior Lawyers Division chair Hekim Hannan (Comment) are, to borrow his own words, ‘ill-considered and nonsensical’. He appears to speak for less than 10% of junior lawyers, let alone black people and other ethnic minorities, who, after attaining a respectable law degree and LPC, are unable to ...
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Broader picture
I write in response to the article ‘End traditional training, says watchdog’. The part that concerns me is the suggestion to ‘end the "general practitioner" model’.
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Banking giant faces landmark mis-selling case
Key defences relied on by banks in interest rate swap (IRS) mis-selling claims are set to be tested in court this October when the claim of business-owner Sara Pearson against Barclays comes to trial.
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A-Z of boundary disputes
‘I do not… accept that the days are gone when a party can litigate over a tiny strip of land, although I would certainly agree that it is usually economic madness to do so, but a person remains entitled in law to protect and preserve that which is his or ...
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Plans drawn up to expand patent opinions service
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has set out proposals to expand its patent opinions service and is seeking views on improving its mediation service to help cut the costs of resolving patent disputes.
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Shifting the burden: support for stress
The suicide last year of a senior local authority solicitor who felt unable to cope with the demands placed on him following a 30% cut to his department’s budget shocked the profession. The pressure to do more with less is evident across all areas of practice, ...
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Super grass
Obiter cannot be alone in experiencing a minor thrill from the annual permission bestowed by the annual Legal Charities Garden Party to walk past Lincoln’s Inn north lawn’s ‘Please keep off the grass’ sign.
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Law Conference 2012 preview
In the original Star Wars film, answering Luke Skywalker’s scepticism about the space-worthiness of his ship the Millennium Falcon (‘What a piece of junk!’), interplanetary smuggler Han Solo reassures the young traveller: ‘She may not look like much but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot ...
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Law firms are acknowledging that they have a responsibility to solve the problems of their peers
‘Help’ can be the hardest word for a lawyer to utter. As reported in this week’s feature, a call for assistance clearly goes against the grain for people whose stock in trade is assisting clients of whatever type in solving their problems. Add to that the competitive and adversarial nature ...
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Law firms' collaboration helping to combat climate change
by Desmond Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society This week business and political leaders are meeting for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development – dubbed ‘Rio+20’.
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Don't exclude future legal aid lawyers
I am disappointed to see that my name has been missed off both the Queen’s birthday honours list and the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year (LALY). I suppose they should now be Public Funding Lawyer of the Year but PFLY (Phillies?) does not have the same ring to it. ...
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Theresa May is improperly cutting corners
Ministers could benefit from a short induction course on the constitution. Theresa May might then have been reminded of what she probably already knows: it is odd to threaten the judiciary in the terms that she just has on immigration. ‘If they don’t [pay heed to non-statutory provisions] then we ...