Last 3 months headlines – Page 1303

  • News

    Law Society responds to training review

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Bottlenecks in the legal training system are inevitable so long as there are more aspiring entrants to the profession than the market can employ, the Law Society points out in its first formal response to the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR). The response is broadly in favour of the ...

  • News

    Arbitrary decisions

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Picture this: an international arbitration, millions of dollars at stake; an expert is called to give evidence on damages right at the end of the hearing. This is what he says happened: ‘Everyone had flown miles to come to the arbitration. I was the last witness. One of the counsel ...

  • News

    Government must not ignore Strasbourg’s overtures on prisoner voting

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    How did the government get itself into such a mess over prisoners voting? After human rights judges stretched out the hand of friendship to the UK last week, David Cameron promptly bit it off, willingly giving parliament an undertaking that he would not succumb to what one MP had described ...

  • News

    Chinese law firm looks to build UK ‘bridge’

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    A ‘win-win’ relationship forged between UK solicitors and one of China’s largest law firms could see UK practitioners claiming their share of China’s rapidly growing legal services market, the Gazette was told last week.

  • News

    Patent court decision 'worth £3bn a year to UK'

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    The UK legal sector could lose almost £3bn a year if the proposed new European central patents court is not based in London, the Law Society claimed this week.

  • News

    Case management - a more robust approach

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Guntrip v Cheney Coaches Ltd, [2012] EWCA Civ 392, Ward, Elias and Lewison LJJ; Fred Perry Holdings Ltd v Brands Plaza Trading Ltd & Another [2012] EWCA Civ 224, Jackson and Lewison LJJ.

  • News

    Patently obvious? You’d think so

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    The UK is not universally loved in Europe. Just ask Engelbert Humperdinck. So the notoriously Europhile justice secretary Kenneth Clarke was in an awkward position this week in respect of the new European patents court. Chancery Lane added its voice to warnings that UK plc will miss out on up ...

  • News

    Learning from Germany in forging a more effective criminal justice system for young adults

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    by Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League The T2A Alliance has put together a 10-step plan to reduce the number of young adults in the criminal justice system.

  • News

    Trust in lawyers falling, says consumer panel

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Consumer satisfaction with the value for money of legal services has risen over the past year, but trust in lawyers has fallen, according to the second ‘tracker’ survey carried out for the Legal Services Consumer Panel. The YouGov survey showed that satisfaction with the value for ...

  • News

    Insurers set for referral to competition watchdog over inflated premiums

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Insurance companies are taking advantage of the system to inflate premiums for drivers by £225m a year, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) reports today. The competition watchdog says that after a road traffic accident, insurers of the not-at-fault driver and others, such as brokers, ...

  • News

    Food for thought

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Fresh from spreading the word to breakfast time news audiences about the new services the Co-operative Legal Services plans to offer to consumers, its managing director met the trade press for ‘lunch’ to lay down the gauntlet to traditional law firms.

  • News

    Garden leave

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Legal gardens will be doing their bit for London’s annual celebration of its hidden - and often exclusive - green squares. Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn as well as Holloway and Wormwood Scrubs Prison gardens are all taking part in Open Garden Squares Weekend.

  • News

    Torch bearer

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Kate Hincks, vice-chair of the Lawyers with Disabilities Division of the Law Society, was chosen from 30,000 People’s Champions to carry the Olympic torch through Royal Wootton Bassett on its journey around Britain. Hincks has been volunteering since she was 11 years old and currently ...

  • News

    Keeping schtum

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    With more than 100 ABS-wannabes at stage 2 of the laborious application process, we’re not expecting a brass band to march down Chancery Lane every time the SRA approves a new alternative business structure. But perhaps it might be worth telling the successful firm itself?

  • News

    Memory lane

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Law Society’s Gazette, 3 May 1972 Better off on supplementary benefits? (Letter to the editor) ...

  • News

    Lawyers must demonstrate sound judgement in turbulent times

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    History describes circumstances where moral attitudes change. Slavery was accepted as perfectly normal for centuries, indeed a reflection of an ordered universe; today it is considered abhorrent.

  • News

    Company

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Receiver - Solicitor - Negligence - Claimant company suffering losses from fire Edenwest Ltd v CMS Cameron McKenna: ChD (Mr Justice Hildyard): 14 May 2012 The claimant company carried out ...

  • News

    Practice

    2012-05-31T00:00:00Z

    Pre-trial or post-judgment relief - Freezing order - Committal order - Disclosure JSC BTA Bank v Mukhtar Ablyazov and others; JSC BTA Bank v Addleshaw Goddard LLP: QBD (Comm) (Mr Justice Teare): 15 May 2012 ...

  • News

    MoJ answers key QOCS questions

    2012-05-30T00:00:00Z

    The government has answered some of the fundamental questions about how its new system for transferring the costs burden in personal injury cases will work. Under qualified one-way costs shifting, claimants are intended to be protected from defendants’ costs in most circumstances, even when they lose. ...

  • News

    First in, last out

    2012-05-30T00:00:00Z

    I was sat at my desk well before 8am on a day when I had had the possibility of a holiday but it had not happened for one reason or another. This happens if you are a partner: you earmark time off but something urgent always comes up. A colleague ...