Last 3 months headlines – Page 1235
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Society proposes five-yearly check on criminal practitioners
The Law Society is seeking views on a plan to bolster its criminal litigation quality standard by reaccrediting solicitors every five years. It has proposed that members of the Criminal Litigation Accreditation Scheme (CLAS) should undergo a regulatory check every five years involving six hours ...
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Concern over police use of interview loophole
The Law Society has raised concerns with the Home Office about police officers denying suspects their right to consult a solicitor. Richard Atkinson, chair of the Society’s criminal law committee, told the Gazette that police are circumventing the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) by ...
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Government plans 'could undermine human rights court'
Inflexible government proposals to tackle the backlog of 150,000 cases at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) could undermine the court’s credibility and deny access to justice, the Law Society has warned as an international conference on the court’s future begins today. The proposals, in ...
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Interpreter 'bite' mistake causes trial collapse
A four-day burglary trial at a London Crown court collapsed last week after an interpreter made a mistake translating the defendant’s evidence. The trial at Snaresbrook (pictured) was halted on Friday afternoon after the Romanian language interpreter admitted mistakenly telling the court that the defendant had allegedly been ‘bitten’ rather ...
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Court of Appeal rules in favour of age discrimination claim
The Court of Appeal (CoA) has ruled that a solicitor may bring an age discrimination claim against the firm that dismissed him just 10 days before it appointed a younger and less well-paid solicitor to do a similar job.
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Wotton urges US to accept ABSs
Law Society president John Wotton will today urge the US to embrace the era of alternative business structures.In a speech to the American Bar Association (ABA) in New York, Wotton is expected to speak of the opportunities for solicitors through non-lawyer ownership of firms.
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Solicitors 'refuse to give journalists their names'
A leading court reporting agency says increasing numbers of solicitors are refusing to give their full name to journalists when appearing in court. Guy Toyn, news editor at Central News, told the Gazette that up to one in every 20 solicitors his reporters comes across asks ...
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How long before we end up with a serious miscarriage of justice?
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. As professional interpreters continue their de facto strike over the ongoing outsourcing shambles, Marx’s dictum sprang readily to mind. Last week’s collapsed trial at Snaresbrook over the difference in meaning between ‘beaten’ and ‘bitten’ follows an earlier charade at Ipswich where ...
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Colombia overtures obscure deep-rooted human rights issues
by Bryan Nott, partner at Simpson Millar ‘Colombia: isn’t it a bit dicey?’ It is possible that the lawyers Michael Cross spoke with when he visited Colombia showed irritation at that question.
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Care crisis looms without more funds, Society says
The Law Society has warned that greater resources are needed to prevent a crisis in the care system as the number of applications soars to record levels. Annual figures released by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) show that for the ...
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Ruling highlights ministerial passivity in the face of US aggression
Sometimes you just can’t win - particularly with the Daily Mail. ‘A glimpse of common sense from Strasbourg’ was its headline hailing the government’s victory at the European Court of Human Rights in the case involving both Babar Ahmad and Abu Hamza. The subsequent piece was the usual attack on ...
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The third degree
In the House of Lords recently, a Liberal Democrat peer pointed out that third-party funding used to be ‘both a crime and a civil tort’. But unusually for a practice that was previously considered illegal, third-party funding is now basking in the warm glow of judicial approval; and while the ...
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The scope of legal professional privilege
The question before Mr Justice Akenhead in Walter Lilly & Company Ltd v Mackay and another [2012] EWHC 649 (TCC) was this: does legal professional privilege (LPP) attract to documents produced by a claims consultant, even one which retains legally qualified personnel?
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Why self-help makes business sense
District Judge Richard Chapman asks us for help with problems for the judge and the parties when litigants have to represent themselves. For many years, my firm’s Law Shop service has been giving advice to clients who have to self-represent in the Small Claims Court, in exactly the way that ...
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‘Impossible’ practice
Richard Chapman writes persuasively about the role of solicitors giving assistance to self-represented litigants. I am sure that if it were just a matter of helping a professional colleague, many would be happy to oblige. The matter is, however, deeper than that. These problems are arising ...
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Taxing issues
I refer to Robert Forman’s piece about the political stance taken by the Solicitors Regulation Authority over Stamp Duty Land Tax schemes.
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Fees and LDPs
I write in response to the letter ‘Raw deal for LDPs?’, concerning the process of passporting to an alternative business structure. To clarify, there is no fee for a non-lawyer manager LDP which elects to transition to the ABS regime ahead of the transition period (which the author is correct ...
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Musical truth
What a bunch of old rockers Gazette readers turned out to be. Obiter’s plea for songs to accompany Gazette news stories evidently had a few of you thumbing through your vinyl collections.
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Rucking all over the world
Lawyers are uncompromising in negotiation and unafraid of getting down and dirty when it comes to winning a point. They tackle issues head-on, run with the ball and… Obiter could continue with the rugby puns, but there is a more serious point. The New Zealand lawyers northern rugby tour is ...