As many thousands of people look to return their unwanted Christmas gifts in January, it is definitely worth refreshing your memory on the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and how this affects your rights as a consumer. After all, when you think about it, this Act of Parliament focuses on an area of law that we are all involved with on an everyday basis.

An excellent opportunity has arisen for ILSPA Students. Please read further if you are interested in joining a trainee Legal Secretary scheme run by the law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), which is based in London.

The way in which we express ourselves can make a vast difference in how others respond to us. Communication styles have a large role to play here. So, if we use certain types of communication which are expressive of our needs and yet respectful of the needs of others, then we can maximise the chances of others responding well to our requests.

When you think of writing a will, it is unlikely that what comes to mind are issues about cutting-edge technology, but that is exactly what some practitioners are now thinking about. Wills and probate, like any area of the law, must try to keep moving with the times. Changes in how society uses technology mean that lawyers need to be aware of new issues that affect how wills are prepared and what matters they should cover.

I have written before about various options for keeping your data backed up for the dreaded moment when disaster strikes or your computer fails beyond repair. Realising that you have lost your important documents, or having the tech team at the local computer store say that you should have backed up your data before bringing your computer in for repair, is not a good feeling.

With more and more people in our society choosing to embrace body art, current attitudes towards tattoos are starting to be questioned. It would appear that there is still the misconception that only thugs and lower-class individuals choose to have tattoos. Statistics show, however, that body art has well and truly crossed the class divide, and people from every walk of life now wish to express themselves in such a way.

Why does anyone want to become anything? When I was a child, a frequent question was 'What do you want to be or do when you grow up?'. I can't remember my answer now but I'm sure I may have qualified it (as many children do) with a reason such as 'Because it helps people'.

Now when I think what I want to achieve in a job or why I would choose a particular job, and I'm sure it's top of many people's list, it's nearly always to do with job satisfaction - to make a difference.

How do I make a difference? And how do I achieve this by becoming a Legal Secretary?
 

Part 1 – Preparation

One of the key aspects of being able to take minutes at meetings is the importance of preparing to take minutes. The better prepared you are the easier it will be for you to concentrate on taking minutes during the meeting. So here are the top 10 tips to help you prepare so that you can focus on the meeting rather than worry about what it’s about, whether you’ve booked coffee or if the PowerPoint works.

Problem? What problem? Problems are not really problems – they’re improvement opportunities...although I will admit that they don’t always feel that way at the time. But the reality is, problems can exist, and if we use effective problem-solving skills, tools and techniques, we can significantly improve the situation. So here are the top 10 tips for improving your problem solving:

We can all see the argument at either end of this planning issue: On the one hand, we have a country that is known to be short of millions of homes within its overall housing stock; on the other hand, we have beautiful countryside that needs to be protected from the builders. So what is the solution to this massive dilemma and how can planning laws ever hope to balance both of these considerations?