Last 3 months headlines – Page 1270
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How to be an excellent work experience student
It is probably safe to come out of my room. Throughout the summer we have had the usual crop of internees, work experience candidates and volunteers - call them what you will. They were all keen, pleasant, polite, and frighteningly intelligent and some even really impressive. Work experience is an ...
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Divorce: end to meal ticket for life settlements?
The Law Commission’s paper reviewing spousal maintenance and its duration following a divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership gives a scathing critique of current law, but could its proposals result in less work for lawyers, especially from wealthy overseas clients? The commission calls for ‘fundamental ...
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A vote against culture wars
Two legal items were reported on the same day last week, which led me to fear that the UK is moving towards the culture wars that disfigure debate in the US.
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Grant: crime compensation scheme ‘not sustainable’
Helen Grant, the newly appointed justice minister, has reiterated the government’s intention to cut compensation for victims of less serious crime. Grant (pictured) said the new scheme, due to be implemented at the end of this month, will save the taxpayer around £50m a year and ...
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‘Litigious climate’ harming public services, says thinktank
The ‘destructive consequences’ of health and education-related litigation have been attacked by influential conservative thinktank the Centre for Policy Studies. Co-authored by social commentator Frank Furedi, ...
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Client money focus as SRA reviews mortgage fraud strategy
Cutting the need for solicitors to hold client money in conveyancing transactions is among measures being looked at by the Solicitors Regulation Authority as part of a review of its strategy to help firms reduce the risk of mortgage fraud. The SRA announced today that it ...
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Managing the risk of IP theft
Intellectual property theft is often linked to cases of redundancies or team moves, where an employee leaves the company, taking with them sensitive documents such as business plans, customer information, or financial results. The employee will then offer a next employer this IP or will use it to start a ...
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The legal services reform catechism of cliché
My attention has been drawn to a recent tendency to slackness among innovators in the supply and regulation of legal services. I refer of course to the failure to include every possible cliché in emailed announcements concerning the said innovations. As a corrective, the Gazette offers ...
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All-round roasting for family justice reforms
MPs, judges and expert practitioners yesterday condemned the government’s planned legal aid cuts and family justice reforms, warning that the fiscal imperative driving them will harm children. Plaid Cymru MP and barrister Elfyn Llwyd said the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, which from ...
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Nicklinson widow launches article 8 appeal
The widow of locked-in syndrome victim Tony Nicklinson is to pursue the appeal that her late husband would have brought if he was still alive, it emerged today. Nicklinson failed to convince the High Court in mid-August that friends and doctors should be allowed to help ...
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Delays in the family justice system
How often has it been said that delay is the cancer which eats away at our system of justice? The Civil Procedure Rules were brought in on a tide of enthusiasm to reduce delay. The latest Family Procedure Rules adopt much of the style, form and content of their civil ...
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Increase in damages by 10%
In Simmons v Castle [2012] EWCA Civ 1039, the Court of Appeal has added to the general splashing about which precedes the enactment of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. In an effort to provide ‘proper, prospective warning’, it has jumped in ahead of the implementation ...
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A drain on the public purse
Two items in your 5 July issue have prompted me to do what I have never done in the 41 years since I was admitted – write to the Gazette. On page 12 you printed a letter applauding the Supreme Court for applying article 8 of the European Convention on ...
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Help is at hand
Returning after a short period away from the office, I found the inbox filled with invitations to attend courses and join subscription groups offering support to compliance officers for legal practice (COLPs). Timely and worthwhile, no doubt.
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Time to buck trend
Why, since the Law Society’s regulatory function passed to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, should we as a profession (in common with our brethren at the bar) be overseen by so many authoritarian organisations which we are compelled to fund? Surely both the ombudsman and the ...
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Without prejudice
I read Joshua Rozenberg’s 30 August article ‘In good faith’ with interest. The issue of whose rights prevail in the case of conflict is complex. I disagree with his viewpoint though.
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Learning curve
Lucinda Moule called for more selection in state education to improve social mobility. She is wrong.
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Summertime blues as 250 law firms shut
More than 250 law firms have ceased conducting business since the start of summer, but observers are divided on whether the trend is the first sign of long-awaited consolidation or a statistical blip. Data published this week by the Solicitors Regulation Authority show a total ...