All over the place there are notices up in robing rooms that ask us: have you ever thought of a judicial career? They are a bit like those “Your Country Needs You†posters, but without the moustache. For much of our careers the answer to the question, like so many questions posed on posters and advertisements, has been a pretty clear: “No, actually.†Being a judge seems so far away from what we do – being unnaturally quiet, not getting worked up about the outcome of the hearing, fooling about with your mates in the robing room and so on – that it appears to be an alien job, existing in a parallel universe to the court rooms that we inhabit.
Ian Harris and Christopher Gutteridge review recent decisions on whether the prosecution can rely on hearsay evidence to remand a defendant in custody, claims for the return of property, and costs orders in criminal cases
Statutory demands, an invaluable method of debt collection in the current climate, can be set aside by application to the court, but this will only be granted under specific circumstances, says Verona Cocks
Websites offering user-generated content that behave responsibly in relation to copyright infringement should be safe from court action – at least until there is further development in this area of the law, says Dawn Osborne
Lord Justice Jackson's preliminary report raises fundamental questions that could give rise to a sea change in the way litigation is funded and managed, potentially to the detriment of defendants, say Rachel Moore and Scott Nightingale
Helen Bryant explains the new Inheritance Tax Account Form IHT 400, and considers cases involving post-death IHT planning and the interpretation of wills
With wider protection available to whistleblowers, employees' concerns about environmental damage should not be disregarded as too trivial, says Daniel Tivadar
For Welsh firms, the recession has been an opportunity to review their strategies, with many looking to expand to survive the downturn. Jean-Yves Gilg reports
