Last 3 months headlines – Page 1240
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‘Daft’ FoI requests can be ignored
Public bodies can safely ignore requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) for their plans to deal with zombie invasions. Graham Smith, deputy information commissioner, told the Solicitors in Local Government annual weekend school last week that ‘silly and daft’ requests would be covered by existing guidance on vexatious ...
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Biggest dissatisfaction is with lawyers' costs
The older I get, the more I feel uncomfortable about the binary nature of our discourse. OK - a pretentious sentence, even by my standards. What do I mean?
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Who’s in the running for top jobs at the ECtHR and Supreme Court?
By the time the courts adjourn for their next holiday break, we shall know who will be taking two highly influential judicial posts. The UK judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) will sit on every case brought against the British government in Strasbourg. The president of the ...
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Legacy10 campaign highlights benefits of drafting will through solicitor
From 6 April, an estate of which at least 10% is left to charity benefits from a reduced rate of inheritance tax on the balance of the estate. This change is an opportunity for everyone within the UK to help increase their support for good causes, at little cost to ...
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New magistrates' courts open
Two new magistrates’ courts opened this week in Chelmsford (pictured) and Colchester. Both will deal with the full range of criminal and family work, and Chelmsford will also have the capacity to deal with Crown court cases.
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Solicitors can help litigants in person prepare for their day in court
I am on a mission and I need your help. I am worried about the increasing numbers of litigants appearing in the county courts of England and Wales without any legal representation.
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We need to reach a compromise on publishing complaints
The Legal Ombudsman had a difficult job deciding how to publish complaints details. The status quo of printing anonymised case studies is generally considered counter-productive. For consumer groups, the case studies have little authority; for law firms, they bring everyone into disrepute. But it is possible both sides of the ...
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Title role
If Mr Pearlman would like to be addressed as ‘Doctor’, at what stage of his career does he want to be addressed as ‘Mr’? Or is he suggesting that medical consultants are not as well-respected as their junior colleagues? ...
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Raw deal for LDPs?
Having spoken to the SRA on behalf of a current non-lawyer manager (NLM) LDP, I was left bewildered as to why any legal disciplinary practice would wish to convert to ABS before the automatic passporting process (which will be delayed). When the plans for the introduction ...
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Sole Practitioners Group remains strongly opposed to ABSs
As chair of the Sole Practitioners Group, who provided material for the news item ‘Sole practitioner numbers rise’, I would like to make a number of points.
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Drifting eastwards: becoming multi-jurisdictional
If Woodward and Bernstein were advised to ‘follow the money’, law firms follow the client. Firms that operate in offshore financial centres have done exactly that. As offshore clients have pulled back from structured finance transactions towards risk-transfer arrangements, so have their lawyers. And where ...
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Taking liberties
Nothing in the world is more important than petrol and pasties, of course. But our short-attention-span media might have made even more of this week’s jaw-dropping proposals from home secretary Theresa May to introduce draconian new web snooping powers (Big Brother WILL BE watching you! trumpeted the Independent).
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Songs of praise
The legal sector is the latest to catch the choral bug (cue jokes about solicitors singing for their supper). Global firm Norton Rose last month sang its way to the Office Choir of the Year 2012 award after a virtuoso performance in London. Singing pieces from ...
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How to judge restorative justice
The Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA) has called on the government to legislate to increase the use of restorative justice - the process that gives victims the chance to tell offenders the impact of their crime.
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Theme tune
Our waxing lyrical competition - to come up with songs appropriate to Gazette news stories - has set the newsdesk at Obiter towers humming. One colleague suggests that Michael Jackson’s Leave Me Alone might go well with the Legal Ombudsman’s complaints procedure, and the Communards’ Don’t Leave Me This Way ...
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Charity chop
Leslie Tuck, solicitor at Harrogate firm Bywaters Topham Phillips has marked herself out as a cut above the rest. The civil litigator went under the scissors last week, chopping 30cm off her hair to donate to children’s charity the Little Princess Trust, which creates wigs for children rendered bald by ...