Last 3 months headlines – Page 1387
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Common sense needed in rape cases
The Crown Prosecution Service has just launched a consultation on guidance governing when individuals who retract allegations of rape or domestic violence should face prosecution. The interim guidance takes immediate effect. It follows a number of high-profile cases, in which women ...
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Protection of Freedoms Bill ‘disappointing’, says Law Society
The new Protection of Freedoms Bill fails to live up to government promises and instead hints at a ‘growth of the surveillance society’, the Law Society has warned. The Society said the legislation, which the coalition claims will scale back on Labour’s ‘intrusive’ policies, will take ...
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SRA streamlines staff levels in move towards risk-based regulation
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to reduce its staff levels by 12.5% by the end of the year, in an organisational restructure announced today. The reduction in staff numbers forms part of the regulator’s transition to outcomes-focused regulation and the licensing of alternative business structures, which ...
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Who can be a lawyer? Two more cases
I meet regularly with representatives of other professions at European level. The legal profession has a number of special features: it is regulated in every EU country, which is not the case with most, if not all, of the others. Secondly, ...
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Jackson’s proposals can’t deliver access to justice at proportionate cost
by Helen Smith, senior broker at TheJudge, a litigation risk transfer broker The legal press has been consumed in recent months with commentary on the imminent doom that will befall the ATE insurance market together with the eradication of recoverability of success fees, should Lord ...
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Butler-Sloss issues warning over legal aid cuts
The government’s planned legal aid cuts will have a ‘serious adverse long-term effect’ on the justice system, a former president of the family division of the High Court has warned. In a speech to the Society of Conservative Lawyers, Baroness Butler-Sloss said that the plans would ...
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Bar Council cautions against ‘DIY litigants’
The government’s ‘crude and brutal’ legal aid cuts will trigger a surge in ‘DIY litigants’ that risks ‘gridlock’ in the courts, the Bar Council has warned. Responding to the government’s consultation on legal aid, which closes today, the bar’s representative body said the cuts, which are ...
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Pro bono figures are a credit to the profession
Last week’s report by the Law Society on pro bono activity by solicitors was a real credit to the profession. The study showed that private practice lawyers performed a whopping £475m of pro bono work in 2009/10, up 19% on the previous year. ...
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Stoke personal injury firm launches iPhone app
Stoke-on-Trent personal injury firm Attwood has launched an iPhone app that allows users to upload images of their injuries prior to launching a claim. Launching the app today, which allows users to value and make a claim, the firm said that uploaded information can be downloaded ...
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Law academics slam Jackson’s civil justice proposals
An independent panel of law academics has branded Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals to reform civil litigation costs as ‘misleading and ‘inconsistent with a fundamental principle of civil justice’, as it published a report today. The 11-strong panel, chaired by Bristol University tort law professor Ken Oliphant, ...
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A popular choice
Thumbing through the latest speech given by an esteemed member of the judiciary last week, Obiter read something so unexpected it almost – though not quite – caused one’s glass of brandy to tilt to a dangerous degree. In a complete reversal of normal events, ...
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Local government
Legal advice and funding – Champerty – Conditional fee agreements – Indemnity clauses Danri Morris and Anor v Southwark London Borough Council: CA (Civ Div) (Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury MR, Lords Justices Lloyd, Gross): 25 January 2011 ...
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Turning a brief encounter into lasting romance
‘Perhaps you have seen someone you like in a cafe, bar or a shop; you may have passed each other on the street or caught their eye on a train. It is fate that you were in the same place at the same time. Don’t let that chance pass you ...
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Glam-tastic
It’s official; solicitors are glamorous. Confirmation, if ever we needed it, came last week when Glamour magazine named solicitor Lisa Morgan (pictured) alongside the likes of Cheryl Cole and Kate Middleton as one of the most influential women in Britain. Morgan was named junior lawyer of the year at the ...
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Memory lane
Law Society’s Gazette, February 1981 Counsel’s Opinion: In Defence of WomankindHow I wish all the painters, scrawlers, slogan writers and scribblers would stop it. One of the least attractive social phenomena of our time ...
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Civil procedure
Civil evidence – Affidavits – Case management – Committal for contempt (1) Consolidated Contractors International Co SAL (2) Consolidated Contractors (OIL and GAS) Co SAL v Munib Masri: CA (Civ Div) (Sir Anthony May (president QB), Lords Justices Smith, ...
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Redefining the defence of fair comment
Most parents have experienced the plaintive cry of ‘it’s not fair!’ hurled from the mouths of offspring made to tidy their rooms or deprived of the must-have of the moment. But the words have also recently sprung from the lips of our judiciary and government ...