Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC, Minister of State at the Scottish Office with special responsibility for European affairs, last week represented the UK at a meeting of the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers held in Luxembourg. Lord Fraser spoke on judicial co-operation issues, including a draft convention on extradition which seeks to reduce […]
LAWYERS in Hong Kong are deeply divided over the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), the final arbiter of law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from 1997. The establishment of the court has caused a major ruckus between the Chinese and British governments as well as at the Law Society and the Bar. And […]
The philosophical foundation of Lord Woolf’s report is clear: a civil justice system should produce just results by fair procedures at reasonable cost and speed. The plight into which our system has fallen is identified with equal clarity: fashioned for the last century it has been rendered nearly unworkable by pleadings which obscure rather than […]
THE LAW Society has threatened to take legal action against the Lord Chancellor if he denies rights of audience to employed solicitors. The threat follows the submission of conflicting advice to Lord Mackay by his advisory committee on legal education and conduct (Aclec). A minority of Aclec members approves extended rights of audience and accuses […]
Local authorities throughout the country had been awaiting the outcome of a judicial review which ended in the Queen’s Bench Division recently. The battle was between a group of street traders who squared up to Liverpool City Council over proposals to reform the city’s street trading scene. It ended in victory for the traders. Keith […]
EUROPE will move closer to resolving the argument over cross-border establishment this week after a working document commissioned by the parliament called plans for compulsory integration into question. The document, prepared by French MEP Nicole Fontaine, flies in the face of European Commission thinking, which proposes compulsorily integrating lawyers into host state professions after five […]
A SENIOR lawyer is spearheading a new campaign to promote the interests of hunting, shooting and fishing organisations. American-born Eric Bettelheim has set up the Country Sports Business Group to co-ordinate fund-raising, lobbying and legal battles on their behalf. Bettelheim, a partner in London firm Rogers & Wells, says the pressure group aims to defend […]
THE legal profession has welcomed Lord Woolf’s plans to introduce a revolutionary three-track system for dealing with civil disputes saying it could, for the first time, swing the pendulum in favour of litigants. But the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (Apil) says the changes suggested in the report must not be allowed to “significantly shift […]
It has long been traditional for Scots business people, whether lawyers or otherwise, to travel further afield in search of new markets. Earlier this month, Glasgow-based firm Bishop and Robertson Chalmers opened an office in Vilnius, Lithuania. And it is the international market which is the main growth area for Aberdeen-based firm Ledingham Chalmers. Head […]
Six judges selected to sit on the International Tribunal for Rwanda will be sworn in this week in The Hague. The tribunal has been created by the United Nations Security Council and will sit in the city of Arusha at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. In April the tribunal revealed it had identified […]
TWO NATIONAL legal networks joined forces last week to launch a new set of “premium level” practice standards for conveyancing firms. The guidelines for bigger and better-organised practices were published jointly by Conquest, the national solicitors’ grouping, and Network 2000, the association of firms which service lenders. The announcement comes as the Law Society finds […]
The legal department at Canterbury City Council is to install an innovative new DataFlow case management system. Staff at the council’s legal department, which includes three solicitors, four legal executives, two paralegals and an administrator, will use the system to administer car parking prosecutions, rent and debt arrears. Canterbury chief solicitor Philip Wilson-Sharp says: “We […]