Last 3 months headlines – Page 1344
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Djanogly reveals lawyers' pay from legal aid
The justice minister Jonathan Djanogly has provided details of the barristers and law firms paid the most from legal aid over the last year, ahead of the publication of the bill setting out the governments planned legal aid cuts. The figures prompted the Law Society to ...
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Administrators pursue former Halliwells partners for £20m
The administrators of collapsed law firm Halliwells have written to former equity partners demanding the repayment of a £20m ‘reverse premium’ which the partners shared when the firm moved into new premises in Manchester. BDO confirmed it wrote to the partners last week demanding they pay ...
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High Court dismisses challenges to magistrates’ court closures
The High Court has rejected legal challenges to the closures of Sittingbourne and Barry magistrates’ courts. Kent firm Robin Murray & Co brought judicial review proceedings in relation to the closure at Sittingbourne, while Vale of Glamorgan Council acted in the case of Barry. ...
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Board approves SRA application to license ABSs
The Legal Services Board has approved the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s application to become a licensing authority for alternative business structures. At a meeting this week, it also approved the SRA’s new Handbook, which sets out the standards and requirements for principles-based outcomes-focused regulation (OFR). ...
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A heavier emphasis on complaints
Recent findings by a YouGov poll, commissioned by the Legal Services Board and published on 9 June 2011, reveal how many law firms may not be complying with their regulatory obligations, to inform their clients of their internal complaints- handling processes and their right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman. ...
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The Big Society, votes and the law
Maybe it’s the rain, maybe it’s the lack of cricket in the Test match, but I’m in a wretched mood today. But the government, at least, has given me something to get my teeth into with two law-related stories catching my eye. Let’s start with justice ...
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Negligence
Duty to take care - Economic loss - Damage to property Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd v Conarken Group Ltd; Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd v Farrell Transport Ltd: CA (Civ Div) (Lord Justices Pill, Moore-Bick, Jackson): 27 May 2011 ...
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Immigration
Asylum - Humanitarian protection grounds - Equivalency principle lFA (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: SC (Lord Phillips (president), Lord Hope (deputy president), Justices of the Supreme Court Lord Brown, Lord Kerr, Lord Dyson): 25 May ...
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Freedom of information and datasets
In January, the government announced plans to amend the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoI) to ensure public authorities proactively release data in a way that allows businesses, non-profit organisations and others to reuse it for social and commercial purposes. OpenlyLocal, a local government data ...
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Many solicitors remain worryingly ignorant of the Get
A Get is a Jewish divorce document that dissolves the marriage of a Jewish couple. When they marry, there is a single ceremony which combines both the Jewish and civil marriage requirements. Should they divorce, however, two separate divorces are ...
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The notarial profession has a very bright future
On 24 May the European Court of Justice (ECJ) gave judgment on the seven cases before it concerning notaries. Fifteen nations were told that it was not possible to restrict work as a notary to their own nationals. Any qualified ...
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Puppy love
Family lawyers will be familiar with divorcing or separating couples fighting like cat and dog, but it seems that many now literally fight over their feline and canine companions when their relationships end. Research by Co-operative Pet Insurance has revealed that one-fifth of separating couples ...
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Sorrows almost drowned
Obiter lives in hope, and likes to think that all legal aid advisers do too, but it can be important to make a few cursory preparations for disappointment. So in the unlikely event that parliament fails to completely eviscerate the more noxious clauses of the ...
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Funny business
Death is not normally what you would call a laughing matter, so it is quite brave of a collection of top-notch stand-up comics to agree to perform at an event in aid of Reprieve, the charity that represents defendants on death row in the US. ...
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Colombian government makes human rights a priority
Further to the article ‘Colombian lawyers under threat’ by Jonathan Rayner, I would like to clarify that the government of Colombia is fully committed to the protection of human rights for all and a better judicial system. Contrary to the concept of ‘judicial war’ described in ...
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Become a vet, solicitors
For those of us being driven to seek an alternative career might I suggest becoming a veterinary surgeon, a profession probably almost as old as ours. Our poor old terminally ill cat suffered a serious seizure on Bank Holiday Monday. ...
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Fair and swear
Today, for the first time in my life, I had to get a document notarised. It seems that this is a rather grand title for having my signature witnessed by a notary. At least that was all it entailed on this ...
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Treatment of wills
I share the views on Illott v Mitson reported so cogently by John Hyde. As a practitioner in the field of wills, the decision is most alarming to me and drives a coach and horses through the whole basis upon which mentally capable testators, acting of ...