Issues

Cavan Taylor, senior partner at Lovell White Durrant, will retire and be succeeded by Andrew Walker at the end of April 1996, and not this year, as stated in The Lawyer last week.

THE HIGH Court has dismissed an order requested by the Serious Fraud Office to suspend reporting on Mirror Group pension fund litigation. Patrick Stewart, partner of Swepstone Walsh, says the SFO applied for an order to postpone reporting on civil litigation until after the criminal proceedings involving Kevin and Ian Maxwell are over. Stewart says […]

A former practising barrister has set up the country’s first legal recruitment consultancy specialising in partnership appointments. Anthony Tomkins, founder of Charles Fellowes Partnership, says he founded his new London-based consultancy Tomkins because of the unprecedented demand for specialist partner level service.

Bar Council chairman and leading commercial lawyer Peter Goldsmith QC has been appointed as a member of the Financial Reporting Review Panel. The panel’s remit is to examine the annual accounts of public and large private companies to see whether they comply with the Companies Act 1985. Chair of the panel is Edward Glasgow QC.

THE LORD Chancellor’s Department is pressing ahead with a radical new system of paying barristers for legal aid work, despite problems highlighted by consultants. KMPG Peat Marwick was asked to come up with a model for “graduated fees” – a form of standardised legal aid payment for barristers – but ran into problems due to […]

THE DISCOVERY process does little to affect the outcome of litigation in the vast majority of cases, according to a survey by Allen & Overy. A&O partner David Mackie highlighted the findings at Lord Woolf’s final seminar on Access to Justice. Mackie told City lawyers and judges that the existing system was “unsatisfactory” before pointing […]

THE LAW Society will open its new regional office in Wakefield after a meeting of the Yorkshire Union of Law Societies voted “overwhelmingly” in favour of the city. The site was chosen over Harrogate, York and Sheffield, which also put in bids after it was announced the area would get its own regional secretary. Society […]

The Government has approved a 2.5 per cent pay increase for judges, at a cost of u3.9 million to the pay bill. The decision follows the publication of the 1995 reports of the review bodies. Prime Minister John Major last week announced the changes would be implemented by 1 April, saying costs would be met […]

The Royal Bank of Scotland, banker to scores of law firms, has slimmed down one of its specialist legal panels. Routine personal debt recovery work is now being carried out by a handful of practices linked to a computer network. The panel has shrunk from about 35 to just nine firms to take advantage of […]

MORE than u1 million in awards was authorised last year by the Solicitors Benevolent Association, for the first time in its 138-year history. The association, which offers financial assistance to English and Welsh solicitors and their dependants, has also recorded a deficit of u50,000 for 1994. Association secretary Commander Nick Lorimer says the awards consist […]

BRITISH Coal has appointed Nabarro Nathanson and McClure Naismith Anderson & Gardiner to assist with the massive disposal of the corporation’s property portfolio. Nabarros will take on the work in England, while McClure Naismith will act north of the border in selling off thousands of acres of land. Alan Simpson, one of the partners in […]

BARTY the springer spaniel adds a welcome human touch to proceedings at Colchester County Court, according to his master Judge Nicholas Brandt. Last week Judge Brandt rubbished claims that the elderly pet had distracted a defendant from conducting his own defence by snoring. He threw out an application for a retrial. Speaking after the case, […]