Last 3 months headlines – Page 1362
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Equality Act will pressure authorities to listen
Passed in the final days of the last government, the Equality Act 2010 (EA) is largely a consolidating measure. It updates private law remedies that challenge discrimination in the workplace, in the education system, or when someone buys, receives, or is denied a service on ...
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Complaints pour in on lenders' panel advice
Law firms are suffering financial loss because lenders are incorrectly advising clients that they cannot use their own solicitor for conveyancing and mortgage work, the Law Society has warned. Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson said Chancery Lane had received a stack of complaints from firms ...
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Juror ‘contempt’ over Facebook contact
A juror who allegedly contacted a defendant through Facebook during a trial could face jail for contempt of court. Attorney general Dominic Grieve QC has applied to the High Court for permission to pursue contempt proceedings against juror Joanne Maria Fraill, who is alleged to have ...
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Human rights LinkedIn launch
The Gazette has launched a human rights LinkedIn group for solicitors interested in civil liberties and human rights issues in the UK and internationally. The group, launched jointly with the Law Society’s international human rights team, will become a leading discussion forum for topics ranging ...
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Solicitor set to pay for wasted costs
A London solicitor at the centre of a dispute over alleged illegal file sharing could face a huge costs bill after a judge ruled that he had breached the code of conduct and ‘brought the legal profession into disrepute’. Judge Birss, sitting in the Patent County ...
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EU takes UK to court over environmental law 'failings'
The European Commission has referred the UK government to the European Court of Justice (pictured) over its failure to provide an affordable procedure for mounting legal challenges to development plans that might damage the environment. The ECJ has the power to impose fines of up to ...
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Law Society will intervene over LPP extension
The Law Society will seek to intervene to prevent legal professional privilege (LPP) being extended to accountants if the matter comes before the Supreme Court, Chancery Lane said last week. Financial services company Prudential was granted leave to appeal a previous Court of Appeal decision ...
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Decision to support SRA structures regulation shows leadership
As announced in the Gazette, the Law Society has voted to support the Solicitors Regulation Authority's (SRA) application to the Legal Services Board for approval as a licensor of alternative business structures. In doing so the Law Society demonstrated an element of the leadership that ...
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MoJ ends training subsidy for Chinese lawyers
The Ministry of Justice has put an end to a £370,000 annual subsidy paid out for the last 20 years to help train Chinese lawyers. The Lord Chancellor’s Training Scheme was aimed at engaging with young Chinese lawyers to improve their understanding of the English legal ...
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From law suits to ties
Obiter had to check the calendar last week on receiving an email announcing the launch of a ‘revolutionary’ new product created by Scottish solicitor Chris Gibson: the ‘SuperTie’. The ‘guaranteed perfect necktie’ combines ‘the innovation of a zipper mechanism’ with ‘Scottish values of high quality’. ...
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Out of la mêlée
Just in, this match report from a gruelling international rugby encounter between the Cardiff Lawyers XV and their Parisian counterparts, Rugby Club du Palais de Justice de Paris. Mark Rostron, partner at Hunt & Morgan, informs Obiter that it was a physical encounter with hard hits going in from both ...
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Legal flicks
Killing time on Twitter last week, Obiter was amused by a thread of tweets under the hash tag ‘solicitormovies’. Twits, twitterers, the legal twitteratti, or whatever the appropriate term is, have posted film titles incorporating the names of law firms. ...
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Wish you were here?
It’s not quite Prague or Venice, but local firm Powell Forster has produced this postcard to celebrate its home town of, er, Brixton, sadly still most famous for the 1981 riots. ‘Beautiful’ might be pushing it a bit, but Obiter applauds the sentiment.
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Privacy law, not injunctions, should be on press's agenda
The press worked itself up into a predictable lather of self-righteousness last week as editors saw their circulation figures threatened by privacy laws. Firmly in their sights were what they called ‘super-injunctions’ - although an injunction whose existence may be reported is no more a ...
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Careful George, he’s tooled up
Watching an old episode of The Sweeney on television last week, I was struck by how much rhyming slang – much of it politically incorrect – was used. Who now would dare or wish to say ‘bubble’ or ‘lemonade’ in their homes, let alone on ...
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Law actors must recognise the threat of jurors misusing new technologies
The lord chief justice will take no pleasure in being reminded of his perspicacity after ...
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Court stenographers to be replaced with digital recording
The quiet tapping of the court stenographer will be silenced by next year to be replaced with a high-tech recording system.
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Is age discrimination rife in the legal profession?
Age discrimination is not what it used to be. I think. The problem is I don’t so much get senior moments these days as senior minutes, hours, even weeks, and it may be that I’m misremembering, to quote someone whose name is ...
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MoJ could face judicial review challenge over civil cost reforms
Charitable group the Public Law Project (PLP) has threatened to launch a legal challenge to the Ministry of Justice’s civil costs and funding reforms. London firm Leigh Day & Co has sent a letter before action to the justice secretary Ken Clark on behalf of the ...
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Lawyers at the heart of the EU’s single market
We already know that there are many different forms of English – Microsoft allows for 18 of them – and I suggest that Euro-English now join the group as the 19th. I am reminded of this because the European Commission wants to boost the single ...