Last 3 months headlines – Page 1392
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National Grid slashes legal panel
National Grid has cut the number of law firms it employs on its panel by a quarter, the utilities giant announced today. The company said that it has ‘sought to introduce fixed pricing and other innovative billing solutions wherever possible under the new arrangements, which also ...
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MoJ pledges £29m for victims of crime
The Ministry of Justice has announced that £29.4m will be dedicated to support vulnerable victims of crime over the next three years. The victim and witness voluntary sector will receive £9.8m annually from the MoJ. This will include £3.5m a year to support the work of ...
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Immigration
Compassionate grounds – HIV – Leave to remain – Medical treatment SG (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justices Sedley, Rimer, Sullivan): 12 January 2011 ...
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Immigration
Human rights – Asylum – Children’s welfare – Failed asylum seekers R (on the application of (1) Reetha Suppiah (2) Danahar Govindasamy (a child by his litigation friend Reetha Suppiah) (3) Emmanuel Govindasamy (a child by his litigation friend ...
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Administrative law
Discrimination – Employment – Government administration – Department for Business Innovation and Skills R (on the application of Cordant Group Plc) (claimant) v Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (defendant) and HM Treasury (interested party): QBD (Admin) ...
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Freedom of information: who 'holds' project licences?
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoI) applies to information which is held by a public authority at the time it receives an access request. The First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) recently examined the sometimes difficult question of when information is ‘held’ in ...
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The trials of youth
Obiter was heartened to see the talent on display at a south-east regional heat of the Bar National Mock Trial Competition last week. The trials were conducted in a competitive but civilised fashion by teams of 17-year-olds from local schools.
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Je ne regrette rien
Any lawyers who consider themselves to be hardworking, dedicated types may be concerned to learn that they are in the minority within the profession. That is, if you believe the results of a survey of 500 legal professionals conducted by online jobs board twosteps.com. According to the survey, a quarter ...
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Rough guide
Obiter knows times are tough out there for property lawyers, but did not realise just how bad things have got until this harrowing picture of Robert Camp, commercial property solicitor and joint managing partner at Exeter firm Stephens Scown, arrived at Obiter Towers ...
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Are shared services a panacea for local authority spending cuts?
There is a road in one English town that falls between two boroughs – the boundary between them is an imaginary line down the middle of the road. Each borough has its own waste-management contract. On two different mornings, a truck from each borough goes down its half of the ...
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Memory lane
Law Society’s Gazette, January 1971 Letter to the editor: At least legal jargon is clearer than computer language ...
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There should be no rigid threshold determining a prisoner’s right to vote
Spare a thought for Mark Harper, junior minister at the Cabinet Office who is responsible for political and constitutional reform. A chartered accountant by training, he finds himself responsible for reducing the number of his fellow MPs; for introducing fixed-term parliaments; and for answering the unanswerable West Lothian question. But ...
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How the self-employed criminal bar intends to compete with solicitors
There are probably about 5,000 self-employed barristers and 1,000 higher court advocates active in criminal defence work. While the number of firms has dwindled substantially in the last few years, the number of barristers has increased, notwithstanding the fact that the work has diminished, mainly through the Crown Prosecution Service ...
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UK rules leaves foreign spouse visa holders vulnerable
In R v Inhabitants of Eastbourne (1803) 4 East 103, Lord Ellenborough declared, absent of statutory support for poor foreigners, the ‘law of humanity, which is anterior to all positive laws, obliges us to afford them relief, to save them from starving’. For one group, however, the law falls short ...
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Does the profession have strength in numbers?
The UK’s laughable inability to cope with more than a light dusting of frozen water is a national embarrassment. But snow has its uses. The week’s shock 0.5% GDP fall is all down to the weather, we are told, and the same applies to gruesome retail sales figures.
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Legal aid cuts spark child abduction fears
Leading family solicitors have warned that withdrawing legal aid for private law family cases could lead desperate parents to abduct their children. Lawyers also predicted that the government’s reforms would prompt people to make false allegations of domestic violence in order to obtain legal aid. ...
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Campbell privacy ruling exposes 'deeply flawed' CFA system
Bumper success fees for lawyers in libel cases will soon be a thing of the past following last week’s ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the Naomi Campbell case, solicitors predicted this week. Kevin Bays, partner at London firm Davenport Lyons, who ...
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VAT victory on personal injury medical reports
Personal injury clients will not have to pay VAT on the cost of medical reports following a successful appeal by a Nottingham law firm, supported by the Law Society, in a tax tribunal last week. Nottingham personal injury and clinical negligence firm Barratt Goff & Tomlinson ...
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New duty for barristers to report misconduct
Barristers will face a duty to report misconduct by their colleagues under new rules proposed by the bar’s regulator. The Bar Standards Board last week published its fourth and final paper in a series of consultations designed to modernise and clarify the bar’s code of conduct. ...
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Jackson attacks government's partial reform plan
Lord Justice Jackson criticised the way the government plans to implement his reforms to civil justice costs in a sternly worded letter to the justice secretary last week. Jackson (pictured) said the detailed package of reforms aimed at reducing civil litigation costs, which he published last ...