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.
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?
It has been announced recently that the coalition Government is seriously considering new employment laws that would effectively make it more difficult for an employee to bring a claim of unfair dismissal against his or her employer. If you have been following our journal over recent months, you may recall how we touched on the massive increase in employment tribunals being brought by disgruntled employees against their employers – in fact, the latest statistics show that 218,000 tribunals were heard last year, and there has been a 40% increase in tribunals over the last three years.
October has been a busy month for reforms within the legal profession – in particular, two major changes in how legal services are provided. The first change was implemented on 6 October 2011: the creation of Alternative Business Structures (ABS’s). With ABS’s, for the first time in the UK, non-lawyers will be able to own and invest in law firms.1 The possibility that more money will be invested in the legal profession is exciting, and we will consider how this may affect you before the end of the year.
If you are a regular reader of articles from the Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs on legal issues, you may notice that this subject was covered some time ago and it is an issue that insists on making the news. Politicians all seem to make noise about changing the law concerning the use of reasonable force to protect yourself, your loved ones and your property, but it is a fact that we are no further forward today than we were when the Tony Martin murder case hit the headlines back in 1999.
If you have studied the Legal Secretaries Diploma course through the Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs, you will have touched upon the constitution of the United Kingdom and perhaps you have felt quite confused over what should transpire, according to the statutes and common law that have been formulated over many centuries and what really happens in reality. You will have learnt also about the conventions that have arisen over the years, whereby members of Parliament and the Prime Minister are obliged to adhere to past precedents in the everyday running of this country.
The law surrounding the doctrine of doli incapax has always proven to be extremely controversial, and not just in England. No doubt every single country in the world has deliberated over the age at which a child should be presumed to know that he/she is culpable of wrongdoing to the same extent as an adult. However, where England is concerned, there are reasons that the Liberal Democrat Party is calling for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised.
Following a review by the Lord Justice Jackson, which was commissioned by the previous Labour administration, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke has now announced that there will be a ban on what are known as ‘success fees’, where no-win, no-fee cases are concerned. This is in an effort to curb the ‘sue and be sued’ culture which many people believe is in operation in our society today.
Effectively, then, the ban on success fees will mean that the solicitor on the winning side will no longer be able to claim additional fees from the side that has lost the case. Instead, the solicitor will be entitled to claim only up to 25% of the resulting award of damages.
An examination of the rule for settling civil claims – Part 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules
Recent announcements by the government have confirmed that later this year there will be major changes to parts of the Civil Procedural Rules (CPR). This month we will examine Part 36 of the CPR, which deals with how Claimants and Defendants can bring legal proceedings to an early conclusion. Although this can be a complex area of practice, the principles are rooted in common sense and the overriding objective of the CPR (legal proceedings should be quick, cost effective and just).
The Legal Services Act 2007 could potentially represent the most significant change ever seen to the legal industry in this country. There is no denying the fact that many of the already established legal firms are slightly apprehensive over the introduction of certain provisions of this Act, and with good reason, as the whole ethos of their company and the way in which they carry out their business is likely to be brought into question, once these new laws finally come into effect. The specific legislation to which we are referring in this article is provided for under part V, ss. 71 to 72 of the Act.