Risk & Compliance

Articles

24 Jun 2008

Update: professional negligence

Spike Charlwood reviews cases on the test of dishonesty in civil proceedings, loss of a chance claims, the first case on limitation after Sephton, and claims against barristers

17 Jun 2008

Knife through the stereotypes

ARound about the time I was still doing juvenile court crime – like delinquency, a practice one hopes to grow out of – the fashion was to blame all society's ills on single mothers. As far as the tabloids and government policy ( often indistinguishable, then as now) was concerned, their general fecklessness , indolence and irresponsibility was to blame for everything. Specifically, their pig headed refusal to have truck with the absent heroes who had fathered their children was the root cause of 'Britain's Breakdown'. It was always a surprise to go to court and meet the reality – worried, hard working, committed women trying to keep their families together against the odds. Not all of course – the odorously pissed mama, a stranger to education, employment or indeed soap, who swigged cans of loopy juice while letting rip to her strongly held views about immigration and shouting obscenities at her 11-year-old wasn't a particularly great advert for motherhood, or indeed our species. Her mantra was that Britain was no longer a place for the decent white working class, like her. After an afternoon of this I did mutter 'Well, one out of three ain't bad' but by then she was too drunk to hear it. But I remember her as a glorious exception to the norm – the majority were wilfully misrepresented.

17 Jun 2008

An active regulator

The SRA's tough new approach to regulation is too intrusive, says David Mayhew

10 Jun 2008

A decade on from reform

The changes to the civil procedure rules following the Woolf report were implemented ten years ago, but have they delivered the intended fairer results at lower costs and speedier justice, asks David Greene

3 Jun 2008

Beneficial ownership

What constitutes detriment for the purpose of supporting a common intention constructive trust, asks Professor Mark Pawlowski

2 Jun 2008

There is no substitute for qualified experts

Stephen Ashcroft advises claimant lawyers to obtain financial analysis from experts to protect themselves against professional indemnity issues

27 May 2008

Civil litigation brief

Gordon Exall looks at the procedure and guidelines governing the transfer of actions from the county court to the Technology and Construction Court

13 May 2008

Opinion: where next for family legal aid?

Low fees mean that family legal aid firms cannot afford to expand and there is evidence that their numbers may be shrinking faster than anyone realised, says David Emmerson.