Family lawyers will be asked if they want an accreditation scheme if a draft consultation paper on the issue is approved by the Law Society this week. The paper, which invites comment from the profession’s 20,000 family lawyers, outlines the cases for and against accreditation and suggests ways of implementing it. Unless it is revised […]
A recent decision in the Court of Appeal provides helpful guidance to police officers faced with disruptive trespassers where a breach of the peace has not yet occurred but is anticipated. In Nigel Watts v Commissioner of Police for the City of London (unreported), the plaintiff, well known following the celebrated libel action brought against […]
Firms spearheading a campaign on behalf of soldiers said to be suffering Gulf War Syndrome have again lost their bid to play a lead role in action planned against the Ministry of Defence. Donn & Co, Leigh Day & Co, and Roythorne & Co formed the Gulf War Action Group in 1992 after Gulf War […]
Agricultural litigation lawyers say farmers and slaughterhouses are satisfied with the Government’s BSE compensation package but that less obvious victims of the crisis have been ignored. The package, announced last week, promises around £500 compensation for every animal over 30 months old which is slaughtered, with supplements available for specialist herds and cash help for […]
A legal battle over the closure of a Safeway store in Sheffield is to go before the House of Lords. Safeway owner Argyll took the prem-ises for a 35-year period in 1982 but in 1995 closed the store because it was no longer considered commercially viable. The Co-operative Insurance Society, which owns the premises, then […]
A television news team has been given access to film in a Scottish court for the first time. The Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Ross, recently allowed a television crew to film the sentencing of two armed robbers who had pleaded guilty. Filming in Scottish courts has been possible since 1992, when Lord Hope issued guidelines […]
Lawyers and the Personal Investments Authority, the financial watchdog, have clashed over the mis-selling of personal pensions in the 1980s. Disagreement has surfaced because life companies have been told by the PIA that investors pursuing litigation against them need not be included in an industry-wide compensation review. The review was ordered last year by the […]
The Serious Fraud Office and the Law Society are being sued for linking an Isle of Man tax solicitor to jailed fraudster Charles Deacon, a lawyer who swindled clients out of £5 million. The case has all the trappings of a James Bond film with the writ highlighting a complex investment scheme involving gold deposited […]
The staff and students of the Inns of Court School of Law will roll up their sleeves and give blood this week to help the plight of a five-year-old girl with acute leukaemia. The young girl, Charlotte Shroder, requires a bone marrow transplant, but has a rare type of marrow that has not found a […]
Ward v Dalziel – QBD 28 March 1996 Claimant: David Ward, 45 Incident: Road traffic accident; claimant driving van which was hit from behind by another vehicle Injuries: Whiplash injury; claimant left with back injury forcing him to give up work for Essex police force where he was a detective constable; he has since built […]
City firm Denton Hall is holding a seminar on 25 April to look at the UK insurance market’s approach to claims compared with that of other European Union members. Speaking at the seminar will be Gerald Kamphuisen, an insurance partner with Dutch firm Houthoff and a member of the the Denton International Group of law […]
THE LAW Society has lost the confidence of the country’s opinion formers and decision makers, according to the Legal Aid Board’s new deputy chair Henry Hodge. The appointment of the former Law Society deputy vice-president and prominent legal aid practitioner to the newly created post was announced by Lord Mackay last week. The move has […]