Last 3 months headlines – Page 1332
-
News
Mirror wills invalidated by signature mix-up, appeal judges rule
A simple mix-up when a husband and wife signed mirror wills 13 years ago means they have no value in law, the Court of Appeal ruled today. The ruling disinherits the couple’s intended heir and has left lawyers calling for a more flexible approach to probate law. ...
-
News
RJW to be limited company following £53.8m Aussie takeover
Top-100 firm Russell Jones & Walker this week became the biggest beast in the new world of alternative business structures by announcing a £53.8m takeover by a stock-exchange listed Australian firm. Slater & Gordon of Melbourne announced the acquisition on Monday, saying it planned to create one the UK’s biggest ...
-
News
Jackson civil cost reforms deferred until April 2013
The government has deferred Lord Justice Jackson's civil costs reforms until April 2013 but fought off attempts to scale back the changes. The Ministry of Justice this week confirmed that civil litigation reform will be put back by six months to give law firms time to ...
-
News
Judges ponder action over pensions
Judges are considering legal action to block an increase in their pension contributions. The judges claim that the changes, which follow the 2010 Hutton report on public service pensions and come into force in April, would be unlawful and have set up an action group to ...
-
News
JLD gets the message out, forsooth
What’s in a name? / That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet (Romeo and Juliet). I’m getting all Shakespearian about names here because the moniker - the Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) - defies easy definition. For starters, lots ...
-
News
US warning on third-party funding reform
An influential US legal lobbying group has warned of 'serious concerns' about the growing power of third-party litigation funding in the UK. The Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) has already pleaded with the American Bar Association to halt the increasing use of external litigation funding ...
-
News
Government at odds with itself on domestic violence
The debate over the definition of domestic violence used in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill highlights the absence of joined-up thinking within the government. Even as the bill appears to seek to adopt a narrower definition of domestic violence than that commonly ...
-
News
The smoke and mirrors of whiplash rhetoric
by David Bott, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) For some time, there has been a theme of depicting whiplash claimants as fraudsters. Jack Straw describes whiplash as a ‘profitable invention of the human imagination’.
-
News
Lords expose intellectual bankruptcy of LASPO Part 2
The House of Lords debate which took place on 30 January revealed divided opinion on key issues in the proposed legislation in Part 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. We now know the changes will be delayed. And emphasis was placed ...
-
News
Data protection - and gossip
As the Gazette briefly reported, the European Commission published its new data protection legislation last week, providing a fresh regulatory structure with which all lawyers and law firms will have to become familiar. I shall focus on that below.
-
News
The business of immigration 2012
Contrary to expectations this is going to be a good year for immigration practitioners. When considering immigration lawyers’ prospects for 2012 we need to remember a lesson from Frederick Bastiat’s Parable of the Broken Window. Bastiat was a 19th century French economist, who taught us to ...
-
News
Downtrodden sidekick gets a moment in the spotlight
You can’t help but feel sorry for the less glamorous half of a partnership. Shunted to the side, often ignored and with their other half stealing all the glory: theirs is a life destined for second best. In the LASPO bill, civil ...
-
News
Fewer apply to study law
Applications to study law at UK universities and colleges have fallen sharply, figures released today show - but not as sharply as applications for university places overall.
-
News
Merger talks off
Talks over a possible merger between national firms DWF and Cobbetts have ended just weeks after they were first confirmed. In a joint statement released today, the firms said the decision had been made not to progress with talks due to ‘current uncertainty in market conditions’. ...
-
News
We’re clearing web backlog, says SRA
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has apologised for delays to online practising certificate renewal as it starts to clear the backlog of applications.
-
News
Securing bank funding through bond issue
Assura Properties plc (Assura), a wholly owned subsidiary of Assura Group Limited, which owns a £542m portfolio of primary care properties in the UK, secured £110m of funding at the close of last year, not through the traditional route of bank lending but via a 10-year bond issue. Both the ...
-
News
Proceeds of crime
Mauritius - Criminal law - Money laundering Director of Public Prosecutions v Bholah: Privy Council (Lords Phillips, Brown, Kerr, Wilson and Sir Malachy Higgins): 20 December 2011 The Privy Council ...
-
News
Managing the implications of ABSs
As Birmingham is our home, we have paid tribute to the city by naming some of our meeting rooms after its famous landmarks. One of them is named after Spaghetti Junction, a Medusa’s head of highways. It can take you where you need to go, but it is a long ...
-
News
Pain of rejection
I have noticed in the past six months a markedly increased level of rejections being received from the Legal Services Commission in respect of claims for payment, for what can only be described as the most petty of reasons. These include, among many: ...
-
News
At least say sorry
In the sympathetic sense of the word, I pity Jewels. The Legal Services Commission clearly does not. An LSC spokesman said: ‘We are sorry to learn that Jewels Solicitors have decided to go into administration and we are now working with the administrators to ensure the firm’s clients continue to ...