A BLUEPRINT to beef up the powers of a reformed Solicitors Complaints Bureau has been drawn up by the Law Society amid warnings that the profession will fragment if selfregulation is taken out of its hands. A stronger, arms-length, lay-dominated complaints handling agency with the power to fine offending solicitors and recommend changes to practice […]
Hampshire solicitor John Isherwood has been named as the new chair of the Council of WaterAid, the UK water and sanitation charity. Isherwood, a consultant with Barker Son & Isherwood is a founder trustee of the body and has served as chair of its overseas committee for more than four years.
After property, a computer system continues to be the single biggest purchase that a law firm makes. Careful appraisal and financial planning are vital when making IT purchases in order to check whether the product is suitable, feasible and acceptable. Suitability Does the proposed purchase fit in with the firm’s business strategy? If the strategy […]
SOUTH African president Nelson Mandela has been signed to speak at an International Bar Association conference in Johannesburg later this year. Mandela will deliver a lecture, ‘The Rule of law: cornerstone of economic progress’, to mark the 25th anniversary of the IBA’s Section on Business Law. His speech will conclude the conference, to be held […]
LABOUR proposals to refer the legal profession to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) and to establish multi-disciplinary partnerships (MDPs) will be thrashed out this weekend at the party’s National Policy Forum. The plans, part of a raft of proposals focusing on legal aid, the judiciary and the legal profession, have already caused debate in […]
THE YOUNG Labour Lawyers Group strongly supports Labour plans for a Judicial Appointments and Training Commission, put forward in the ‘Access to Justice’ paper in February, now contained in the party’s draft policy statement. The judicial commission is contained in one of the three main areas of Labour’s policy, which focus on community legal service, […]
THE DROPPED Lovell White Durrant private client team has been linked with two London firms amid claims that business is booming in the sector. Holborn firm Collyer-Bristow and Lincoln’s Inn-based Charles Russell are believed to be talking to the nine-strong Lovells private client department which the City firm has decided to drop. Lovells last week […]
BANKRUPT solicitor David Deacon, founder of collapsed Deacon Goldrein & Green (DGG), won a small victory in court against creditor NWS Trust last week. Banker NWS Trust, which had successfully applied for his bankruptcy order in April, failed to stop a legal action against it by Deacon. Deacon’s action against NWS Trust, owed about £400,00 […]
Last week The Lawyer ran a story about City firm Lovell White Durrant’s decision to drop its private client work, in which we stated Herbert Smith had done the same in 1991. Herbert Smith has asked us to point out this was incorrect. It has certainly not dropped private client work and has a significant […]
Duncan Finlayson, a former member of the Law Society’s committee on quality management standards, has been appointed as the managing director of LawNet. Finlayson also developed the LawNet Quality Standard, to which all members conform. LawNet chief executive Simon Maddox spent six years in the post.
Pru Willday is assistant solicitor for Truro firm Bray & Dilks. She was born in Colchester in 1953. She recently master-minded the rare litigation on behalf of a 32-year old rape victim Linda Griffiths, resulting in a £50,000 damages award. What was your first job? Teacher of A-level politics. What was your first ever salary […]
At the age of 22, Osman Ismail left university. He had not been a conspicuous academic success, but outside the walls of Aston University he was already a luminary. He sold his final year project, a slick mathematical routine for calculating the stress of buildings, to Wimpeys for £5,000. Ismail’s natural talent was applied maths, […]