Bar Council vice chairman Peter Goldsmith QC romped home unopposed in the Bar elections to be chairman after Robert Seabrook QC for 1995. The contest for vice chairman is now a race between Bar Council treasurer Martin Bowley QC and David Penry-Davey QC, leader of the South Eastern circuit. Hilary Heilbron QC chose not to […]
Legal issues are once again to the fore at the Labour Party conference this week. The Labour Legal Services Campaign is well-represented with leading lawyers including Helena Kennedy QC and Andrew Dismore of Robin Thompson & Partners. The firm is sponsoring the event. The National Union of Civil and Public Servants Association meeting is called […]
Andrew Burnyeat
A new kind of legal services provision has been set up in west London by a young solicitor formerly with high profile legal aid firm Bindman & Partners. Called Law for All, the organisation runs the Acton Law Shop – a hybrid of a small legal aid firm and law centre. It has charitable status, […]
The setting up of new-style magistrates committees has been delayed for six months after complaints that the time-table for change is too hurried. The Lord Chancellor’s Department, claiming its byword “is consensus not coercion”, has bowed to pressure from the Central Council of Magistrates’ Courts Committees. Parliamentary Secretary at the LCD, John Taylor MP, told […]
LAW in Action presenter Marcel Berlins has survived a revamp of the long-running radio show. The Lawyer reported last month that the BBC was considering axing Berlins as part of the controversial scheduling shake-up at Radio 4. But, after testing out other candidates, the BBC has decided to stick with Berlins, but it does want […]
LORD Woolf has unveiled some of the recommendations he is likely to make next year to improve access to the civil justice system. Among the formative plans could be limiting the numbers of judges, forcing them to work in teams to improve “case management”, and creating a new layer of “procedural judges” to shorten cases. […]
A second edition of a guide providing information on the effects of TUPE has been published by City firm Lawrence Graham. The guide, which has been produced by the firm’s Local and Public Authority Unit, will be updated twice yearly by computer disk for local authorities. It gives the latest position on issues such as […]
The 13 September issue refers to a survey of the effect of the new UK commercial agency law, showing that already agents are enforcing their new rights, particularly to compensation. The compensatory damages provisions of the regulations do not make clear how much compensation an agent might claim for lost commission where a contract is […]
US LAWYERS are spreading the word about northern firms following a flying visit organised by the Cowen Group. The group is named after its founder Booth & Co joint senior partner Maurice Cowen. American members of the group gave seminars to clients of Booth’s in Leeds and of Addleshaws in Manchester. One of the most […]
South Africa’s deputy president FW de Klerk and Enoch Dumbutshena of the Zimbabwe Supreme Court are to take part in a special video interview to be screened at the Law Society Conference. The video, introduced by journalist Andrew Neil, will be shown before the human rights debate featuring the Hon Sir Stephen Sedley, the Rt […]
Masons officially opens a new office in Leeds next week which will be filled with construction lawyers and a trio of computer specialists who have defected from Dibb Lupton Broomhead. Shelagh Gaskill, a leading computer lawyer, has joined Masons as a partner from Dibbs’ Leeds office. Associate Zoe Ollerenshaw and assistant Ken Cooke have also […]