Last 3 months headlines – Page 1218
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DWF to merge with Scots firm
National firm DWF has announced plans to merge with Scottish firm Biggart Baillie from next month. The business law firm, which last week topped the £100m turnover mark for the first time, will add to its 10 existing offices with further bases in Glasgow and Edinburgh. ...
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Why I plotted to smuggle explosives
My palms sweat when I think about it now, but I was once party to a plot to smuggle plastic explosives into the Palace of Westminster.
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Three questions about the International Bar Association
I am writing this from The Hague in the Netherlands, where I am attending a variety of International Bar Association (IBA) meetings, including one for Bar Leaders. It has led me to reflect on the structure and aims of the IBA, which are not often publicly discussed. I have as ...
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Matrimonial lawyers and accounting experts
European finance ministers are currently learning what matrimonial lawyers have known for years - a change in relationship is rarely straightforward when there is a lot of money at stake.
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Darwinian times
Last week’s announcement by the Co-operative that it is looking to add 3,000 staff to its 475-strong legal services arm over the next five years shows just how fierce competition is going to get in the legal market. Of course time will tell whether the Co-op achieves its ambitious plans.
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Let’s stop car insurance blame game
Once you’ve finished this article I urge you to buy the Highway Code. Then spend every waking hour reading it, just to avoid ever getting behind the wheel again.
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Osborne Clarke continues strong revenue trend
National firm Osborne Clarke has reported a new high in revenues for the last financial year of £97.7m. The figure was an increase of 8% on the previous year and reflected the firm’s best financial performance in its history. Net profit increased by 6% during 2011/12. ...
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Portal won’t cope with extension, says Law Society
The Law Society will refuse to support an extension of the RTA portal until there are major structural changes to the system. The Society has warned the government it will be impossible to extend the portal to include employer and public liability cases.
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LSB sets diversity reporting deadline
Law firms have until the end of September to provide diversity data about every member of staff, including their ethnicity, religious beliefs, socio-economic background and sexual orientation. The timeline emerged last week when the Legal Services Board (LSB) published its qualified approval of the Solicitors Regulation ...
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Intellectual property
Database rights - Infringement Football Dataco Ltd and other companies v Sportradar GMBH and another company; Football Dataco Ltd and other companies v Stan James Abingdon Ltd and other companies: Chancery Division (Mr Justice Floyd): 8 May 2012 ...
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Local government
Council tax - Respondent being non-British spouse of foreign student Harrow Borough of London v Ayiku: Queen's Bench Division, Administrative Court (London) (Mr Justice Sales): 9 May 2012 The Administrative ...
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Conveyancing panels
The recent announcement of automatic admission for CQS firms to the HSBC panel is a welcome return to normality. Perhaps not quite ‘as you were’, but a major step towards recognition that the best interests of our clients and their borrowers are served by a diversity of choice within the ...
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Unity is strength
Des Hudson and Avtar Bhatoa’s remarks (Hudson: bar strike would ‘damage profession’) will, regrettably, be music to Whitehall’s ears. The criminal bar does not want to strike. Over a number of years, we have lobbied and campaigned in the public interest against reforms and cuts ...
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No slave labour
In his Comment Hekim Hannan states: ‘Why take on a trainee in Sept 2013, pay them £33,300 over two years when you could take on a paralegal on the minimum wage... give them a training contract the following year and pay £33,195 over a three-year period’. ...
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Training woes
Susan Singleton clearly does not ‘get’ how hard it is these days to qualify and how much competition there is. I agree that persistence does usually pay off. However, with tuition fees now at £9,000 a year for a law degree, not to mention the Legal ...
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What’s in a name?
There may be a very good reason why solicitors are reluctant to give their names to reporters after representing their clients in the local magistrates’ court. Reporters never write it down correctly and always get it wrong. I have never lived down a report in our ...
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Keep out of politics
The Law Society says that government plans to make it easier for small businesses to dismiss employees will not help those businesses to grow. The Society’s Employment Law Committee chairman’s views to this effect were quoted in a Society press release.
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Banking on caution
Christopher Digby-Bell’s letter urging lawyers to rein in their banking clients rang a bell with me. In the early 1970s, when I was working as a newly qualified solicitor for a magic circle firm, I raised a query with a secondary banking client concerning the wisdom of some of their ...
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Red-tape bonfire plan for legal services bureaucracy
The government will today invite the legal profession to identify business-restricting regulations, naming three ‘sector champions’ as intermediaries. In the legal services stage of prime minister David Cameron’s ‘red tape challenge’ the Ministry of Justice has pinpointed more than 150 regulations suitable for scrutiny. Lawyers will ...