In your last edition, reference is made to a caucus of council members in opposition to the president and my name is given as one such member. No one contacted me in regard to the article. Although David Thomas sets the situation straight to some extent, by innuendo the wholly wrong impression is given. Some […]
Clifford Chance acted for Bristol developer John Baylis in a joint venture with the Prudential Assurance Co on a £200 million regional shopping centre development at Cribbs Causeway, near Bristol. The scheme totalled more than £700,000 sq ft for around 140 shops. Berwin Leighton acted for Prudential.
The Times essay contest The Times is currently running an essay contest on ‘Advocacy – what is the future?’ with over £6,000 in prizes. No more than 1,000 words by 1 December to The Times Law Awards, c/o 1 Essex Court, Temple, London EC4Y 9AR. Association of Lawyers for the Defence of the Unborn Topic […]
I look forward to discussing the timetabled programme for the review of the Law Society’s attitude and organisation, requested by the council in September; to hearing who has been elected to the working party which will review the society’s activities, as approved by the council in September; most of all, to finding out if the […]
THE LEGAL pitfalls faced by local authorities when they sell off property assets are outlined in a new report published by City firm Nabarro Nathanson. Nabarros planning partner David Hawkins drew up the document with Stephen Clark, a partner in the local authority consultancy of surveyors Hillier Parker. The report advises councils on how to […]
GOVERNMENT proposals to restrict media reporting of industrial tribunals will hamper proper coverage of such cases and would erode the “principle of open justice”, say lawyers for the newspaper industry. Increased powers to limit the identification of parties would apply to defendant companies as much as plaintiffs. Lawyers say reduced reporting would discourage members of […]
A MASSIVE eight-fold increase in House of Lords court fees, including a brand new £500 fee just for petitioning for leave to appeal, come into effect next Wednesday. The new fee structure will take the average cost of fees in an appeal case to £4,500. The scale of this rise overshadows the 9 per cent […]
MANY magistrates courts have poor facilities including “dismal and dirty surroundings” and inadequate financial management, according to a report. And while all Magistrates’ Courts Committees (MCCs), the bodies which run the courts, have begun to form strategic plans, performance monitoring is poor. The result is that MCCs and justices’ clerks “often do not know how […]
Lord Woolf is frank about the problems facing the civil justice system – they are problems which a competent solicitor may help his clients to avoid but which nevertheless entrap far too many users of the English courts. The proposals for multi-track cases (over £10,000) might seem to differ little from the way the Commercial […]
There has been much comment on the content of Lord Justice Woolf’s report Access to Justice. Both professional bodies and lawyers have welcomed proposals, principally aimed at the litigating public, which embrace the speed and fairness of dispute resolution and proportionate costs. But what will the Woolf report mean in practice? It is in the […]
An honorary degree of laws has been awarded to Lord Hoffmann of Chedworth, a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. He received the award from the University of the West of England in recognition of his contribution to the development of professional legal vocational education. Leonard Hoffmann studied in South Africa, where he was brought up, […]
“From chalk and talk to hands-on action” is how one trainee describes the transition from the academic degree stage to the vocational LPC. Now in its second year, the LPC is still having its initial problems ironed out – some of the course materials had gaps and these have been filled, but new holes are […]