Last 3 months headlines – Page 1227
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Family justice ‘wish list’
Children caught up in the family justice system want their cases dealt with faster and with greater support throughout the process, according to a board made up of 32 young people with direct experience of the system or an interest in children’s rights. The Family ...
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Surveying the damage
Law firms serious about sustaining – never mind building – their businesses should digest the ‘super-survey’ published last week by the Ministry of Justice, Law Society and Legal Services Board. This heavyweight (literally and metaphorically) piece of work offers the deepest insight yet into how practitioners are coping with an ...
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Is compulsory pro bono needed to fill the void left by legal aid cuts?
by Emma Pearmaine, head of family law at Simpson Millar As we approach the implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act in April, I cannot help but think about my visit to Uganda in November.
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‘Common sense’ fraud ruling lauded
The Court of Appeal’s ruling that a solicitor was not liable for a building society’s losses after being duped by a fraudster has been hailed as a ‘return to common sense’. Birmingham firm Davisons was instructed by Nationwide to act in respect of the purchase of ...
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My legal life: Philip Trott
My mother was a political refugee. The family saw Hitler coming, and took a very circuitous route from Czechoslovakia to Bedford Street, London, and refuge here. Ultimately, hearing and seeing what the family had gone through caused me to practise immigration law.
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Going underground
The worm has turned. Obiter is fed up with solicitors automatically appearing as baddies in popular culture (not to mention government policy). It is time to start celebrating the profession’s historic heroes. Hero number one was inspired by this month’s 150th anniversary of the London Underground (pictured). ...
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Five-star quality
Obiter has been checking to see how Professor Richard Susskind’s new book, Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future, is faring at online retailer Amazon. Publisher OUP has priced the book at £9.99. At the time of writing, some vendors were already offering it at £6.73. ...
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Wall treat
A solicitor’s office in the City. Brewer, the office manager, sees pretty new 19-year-old intern Pat as fair game. Meanwhile, cynical Miss Janus’s romantic life seems to be over as she is jilted by her lover at the desperate age of 35... Sound familiar? That’s the ...
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An employee of myself?
I was pleased to read Daniel Sproull’s letter in last week’s Gazette. It has spurred me to put my head over the parapet as well. I am a 67-year-old sole practitioner with no employees. I completed part one of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s diversity survey thinking I would hear no ...
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Green in the dock with technology
Damian Green, minister for criminal justice, tries out new courtroom technology on a visit to the Crown Prosecution Service in Maidstone, Kent. Under the digital strategy of the Law Officers’ Departments, published last month, the CPS is to introduce ‘full digital working’ by December.
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Unpaid court fines still add up to £600m
The government failed to make any significant impression in the £600m outstanding debt from court fines during the past financial year. Justice minister Helen Grant revealed on Friday that outstanding impositions stood at £1.8bn by the end of April 2012.
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Lobbying by lawyers – a prickly path
I often avoid writing about sensitive topics, out of cowardice. One of these has been the hyper-sensitive subject of governmental lobbying by lawyers, which is of interest both in the UK and in the EU.
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Justice secretary questions hiring of QCs in criminal trials
Taxpayer funding for criminal defence should to go to less-expensive lawyers than QCs, Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, said today. Grayling used an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to criticise the way the annual £1bn criminal legal aid budget is spent, particularly ...
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Relocation of children
When ferries were the only means of travelling abroad a national newspaper carried the headline: ‘Fog in Channel; Continent Cut Off’. Travel may be easier today, but there remains a legal obstruction to some parents’ departure from these shores. F (Child) [2012] EWCA Civ 1364 is the Court of Appeal’s ...
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Memory lane
The Law Society’s Gazette, January 1913 Official shorthand writers in courts of justice At the Annual General Meeting of the Society a resolution was passed referring it to the Council to consider and report whether it would be desirable that official shorthand ...
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What is to be done over convention?
My father – in my mind because, aged 93, he has just died – used to take me to rugby internationals at Murrayfield in the 1960s. These were dominated by much kicking for positional advantage. Games were, depending on your point of vantage, fascinatingly tactical or grindingly boring. That experience ...
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CILEx announces advanced legal apprenticeship
The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) is to introduce a new advanced apprenticeship in legal services which it says will provide a springboard to qualification as a lawyer. The Level 3 Advanced Apprenticeship in Legal is being developed in partnership with Skills for Justice and ...
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Supreme Court stars on YouTube
The Supreme Court’s decision to post videos of judgment summaries on YouTube from tomorrow is great news. It will open up the court to a new audience and build a useful resource for students. As an imperfect practitioner in the art of reducing complex legal arguments to a paragraph or ...
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Care home fees
Not care home fees, but tensions between Henry II and his archbishop led a character in TS Eliot’s Murder In The Cathedral to ask: ‘What peace can be found/To grow between the hammer and the anvil?’ But while a dispute over Newcastle City Council’s approach to care home fees has ...
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Taxi for the cab rank rule
The barristers’ cab rank rule is ‘redundant’ and should be abolished, according to a report published today by the Legal Services Board. Authors Professor John Flood and Professor Morten Hviid suggest that the rule is ‘regularly breached’, and serves ‘no clear purpose’. They claim its ...