Last 3 months headlines – Page 1217
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Allen & Overy’s Wootton leads thin line-up of solicitor honours
David Wootton, partner of magic circle firm Allen & Overy - and last year’s Lord Mayor of London - is one of only a handful of solicitors to feature in the 2013 New Year honours list. Corporate finance specialist Wootton, who was admitted in 1975, receives a knighthood ‘for services ...
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Government backs apprenticeship route to law
Apprenticeships equivalent to BA and MA degrees will soon be available as a route in to the law, the government announced today. In a statement strongly backing professional apprenticeships, Matthew Hancock, the skills minister, said there is no reason why aspiring lawyers cannot attain the ...
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Compliments of the season to all our readers
Thank you for visiting our website in 2012. The Law Society Gazette is now taking a break until 2 January, when our daily newsletter will resume publication: if you have not yet subscribed, please do so via the link to the right. Our next print ...
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Dispute numbers decline as crash impact fades
New research shows that the number of commercial and civil disputes resolved in the UK through arbitration, mediation and adjudication fell sharply as the impact of the 2008 crash abated. The total fell from 27,110 in 2009 to 21,260 in 2011, according to figures contained ...
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RTA Portal software may not be ready for deadline
The company running the expanded claims portal today admitted a significant setback in meeting the government’s April deadline for handling new types of claims. In a statement, RTA Portal Co revealed it will have to build the software for the extended system on the basis of ...
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Quality and compliance – it’s all the same, isn’t it?
Well, no... If you have achieved and maintained a quality standard such as ISO and Lexcel that’s great, but both of these are management standards which enable you to document your processes and procedures and then monitor their effectiveness. Unless your standard has been specifically adapted to deal with ...
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What connects us: can the answer be human rights?
A rising tide of prosperity that floats all boats is no longer the glue that can hold our society together. Whatever the consensus was in the boom years around the greater good that could be derived from economic growth driven by personal atavism, to make the same argument at the ...
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New model pioneers win ABS status
Two of the highest-profile flagbearers for new models of legal service ownership have won approval as alternative business structures. Knights Solicitors, owned by James Caan’s private equity vehicle Hamilton Bradshaw, and stock exchange-listed personal injury company Quindell Portfolio were both confirmed as ABSs by the Solicitors ...
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Trainee retention figures hold up
Leading firms in England and Wales retained 79% of their trainees once they had qualified in 2012, new figures reveal. The Chambers Student guide surveyed 123 mostly commercial firms and found that 2,074 out of 2,620 trainees remained at their first firm. ...
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Hunting in the dock
The latest friends of the prime minister to have found themselves in the criminal dock are members of the Heythrop Hunt. This is Cameron’s local hunt in Oxfordshire, with which he rode half a dozen times before the Hunting Act in February 2005 made hunting with dogs unlawful. ...
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SRA admits disappointment at COLP and COFA figures
Several hundred firms face having their authorisation revoked for failing to appoint acceptable compliance officers, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said today. In its first formal statement of disappointment at the profession’s response to the requirement to appoint compliance officers for legal practice and for finance ...
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Global approach to family law
The reform of family law is a constant source of debate in the UK, and in France it is very much the same situation. For example, a French parliamentary vote expected in January on proposals to open up the institution of marriage to gay couples mirrors the current debate in ...
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High threshold for offensive social media prosecutions
Crown Prosecution Service guidelines proposed today for the prosecution of cases involving communications sent via social media sites such as Twitter will give more latitude to offensive and satirical comment, the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer QC said. The guidelines require prosecutors to distinguish ...
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Create constitutional rights, not a new bill – Law Society
The Law Society has added its voice to those opposing the creation of a UK bill of rights. Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, the Society’s president proposed instead that 'constitutional rights' be added to existing laws. In a statement published after the government’s Commission on a Bill of Rights ...
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Yielding the greatest return?
I had a meeting with a potential client last week and, rightly so, the partners asked me to quantify the expected return on investment to them on costs of a particular marketing activity.
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Commission: ‘strong argument in favour of a UK bill of rights’
The commission that has spent 21 months and £700,000 investigating the creation of a UK bill of rights has come out in favour of a bill that would ‘incorporate and build on all of the UK’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)’. However, ...
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Consolidation in the legal sector
Recent times have given us two interesting announcements in relation to current merger trends. First, Norton Rose said that it will merge with the US firm, Fulbright & Jaworski. This is set to make the merged firm join the top 10 law firms globally, both by revenue and number of ...
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Horse-riding lessons for lawyers
In the last few weeks, two things have happened simultaneously. First, the government has said that it wishes to continue with the statutory underpinning of rather close supervision of the legal profession. Second, the government has said that it does not wish to begin the statutory underpinning of close – ...
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Linklaters links up with Saudi law firm
Magic circle firm Linklaters has formed a relationship with one of Saudi Arabia’s largest law firms, it has emerged. Under the alliance with Abdulaziz AlGasim, which has over 30 lawyers, the firms will work closely to support their clients on Saudi Arabian and international transactions. ...