Lawyer news

• Justice Department pledges millions to resolve rape kit backlog

  10-09-2015 22:51
  
  The $79m joint initiative with New York promises to test more than 56,000 backlogged kits in 32 jurisdictions in 20 states, over two yearsVice-President Joe Biden on Thursday joined the top US prosecutor and the Manhattan district attorney to announce a $79m initiative to end a backlog of untested sexual assault DNA kits. The initiative is funded by a $41m congressional allocation to the Justice Department and through $38m in civil forfeitures seized by the office of Manhattan district attorney
  
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• $79m pledged to eliminate persistent rape kit backlog

  10-09-2015 22:51
  
  Joe Biden and attorney general Loretta Lynch announce initiative to end backlog of untested sexual assault DNA kitsVice-President Joe Biden on Thursday joined the top US prosecutor and the Manhattan district attorney to announce a $79m initiative to end a backlog of untested sexual assault DNA kits. The initiative is funded by a $41m congressional allocation to the Justice Department and through $38m in civil forfeitures seized by the office of Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance.Continue re
  
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• The Guardian view on assisted dying: a clash of moral visions | Editorial

  10-09-2015 20:30
  
  Assisted dying forces us to ask what life is for and why it’s valuableThe central question about Rob Marris’s bill to allow assisted dying is whether it represents the beginning of a very slippery slope. By itself, the bill is modest and careful. It excludes all but the terminally ill, and people with dementia, even if they are terminally ill; it requires medical and legal approval for every case and it does not require doctors to perform an act of deliberate killing by administering
  
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• Assisted dying bill raises hopes and fears for end-of-life care | Letters

  10-09-2015 20:11
  
  As MPs and peers we write further to the views expressed by Tanni-Grey Thompson, who argues that the assisted dying bill is unsafe (We must reject this intentional killing bill, 9 September). As the debate on assisted suicide intensifies, there is a real risk that the voice of the most vulnerable in our society is being drowned out. Evidence from around the world shows that many who chose assisted suicide cited feeling a burden on those around them as a reason for proceeding.In Oregon and Washin
  
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• Lawyer: Romanian prince to pay $7.28 million to UK magazine editor following ... - Fox News

  10-09-2015 20:09
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  Lawyer: Romanian prince to pay $7.28 million to UK magazine editor following ...
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  A police officer exits the gate of Romanian Prince Paul's house, in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015. The prince's lawyer says his client, who is a grandson to Romania's King Carol II and a nephew to former King Michael, will pay 4.7 ...en meer »
  

• Union wins travelling time case in European court

  10-09-2015 19:37
  
  British trade unions welcome ruling against Spanish company, saying home care workers could see benefits
  Large numbers of workers could be entitled to more pay or a reduction in hours after the European court of justice ruled that travel to and from some jobs could be counted as part of a working day.In a judgment which takes effect immediately, the Luxembourg-based court said this should be the case for staff without a fixed or regular workplace who generally travel from home to and from a vari
  
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• Law firm partner says 'no more briefs' for LinkedIn sexism row barrister

  10-09-2015 19:36
  
  Franklin Sinclair says Charlotte Proudman has ‘blacklisted’ herself by shaming senior solicitor over his LinkedIn message on her personal appearance A partner at one of the UK’s largest criminal law firms has stood by tweets saying will no longer instruct a barrister at the centre of a sexism row over a LinkedIn message sent to her by a solicitor 30 years her senior.Human rights lawyer Charlotte Proudman said she had been told she faced “career suicide” but did not
  
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• Law firm partner hits out at female lawyer after LinkedIn sexism row

  10-09-2015 19:36
  
  Franklin Sinclair says Charlotte Proudman has ‘blacklisted’ herself by shaming senior lawyer over his LinkedIn message on her personal appearance A partner at one of the UK’s largest criminal law firms has stood by tweets saying he would not give work to a lawyer at the centre of a sexism row over a LinkedIn message sent to her by a solicitor 30 years her senior.Human rights lawyer Charlotte Proudman said she had been told she faced “career suicide” but did not regr
  
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• Publish and be damned, Charlotte Proudman. You did the right thing

  10-09-2015 19:28
  
  The barrister has been vilified after she named and shamed a man trying to chat her up on LinkedIn. She was in the right, says Harriet MinterA few months ago I did a TEDx Talk in which I made a joke about being suffocated by my own breasts (it’s a long story). A few weeks after the talk had gone live I met up with a former colleague for a drink. He told me that he’d wanted to email me to tell me the talk had made him laugh but he’d been worried that it would be inappropriate. E
  
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• UK envoy makes new legal argument for drone killings in Syria

  10-09-2015 19:20
  
  Letter from British permanent representative to United Nations says airstrikes were justified on basis of ‘collective self-defence of Iraq’Britain’s envoy to the United Nations has provided a further legal justification for the RAF killing of Islamic State fighters in Syria, declaring that it was on behalf of the “collective self-defence of Iraq”. The new explanation, which was not disclosed to MPs at Westminster immediately after David Cameron told parliament about
  
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• Barrister faces 'career suicide' for exposing lawyer's sexist remark

  10-09-2015 16:49
  
  Female barrister told ‘no more briefs for you’ for shaming senior solicitor over his LinkedIn comment about her ‘stunning’ photographThe barrister at the centre of a sexism furore over a complimentary LinkedIn message from a solicitor 30 years her senior has said she is facing a professional backlash over her decision to speak out.Writing for the Independent, the human rights lawyer Charlotte Proudman said she did not regret her decision to make public a message from Alex
  
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• MoJ to close commercial arm – but Saudi bid will continue

  10-09-2015 15:23 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Just Solutions international, which submitted bid to conduct training-needs analysis for prison staff, will cease to trade.
  
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• I do much more than police work. But if I don’t do it, who will?

  10-09-2015 15:23
  
  I had a busy shift this week, with all the extra work police have taken on in recent decades. With so much inspection, I’m too scared to do lessThe police have been accused of mission creep. Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, says the increase in police budgets in recent decades has had the effect of “crowding out” other professions, and police officers have adopted all manner of roles – “probation officer, social worker, schools
  
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• Officers at Paris police headquarters to be DNA tested in gang-rape case

  10-09-2015 15:21
  
  Two policemen already facing charges after tourist reported being attacked inside well-known building on Quai des OrfèvresAbout 100 officers and staff at Paris’s police headquarters on the Seine are to be DNA tested this week in an unprecedented move by judges investigating the alleged rape of a Canadian tourist in the building last year.Two police officers from Paris’s elite anti-gang-crime squad were charged last year after a 34-year-old Canadian woman filed a complaint that
  
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• Michael Gove to close MoJ's controversial commercial division

  10-09-2015 14:54
  
  Just Solutions International, criticised for selling UK prison expertise to countries including Saudi Arabia, to be wound up The commercial arm of the Ministry of Justice – which has been criticised for selling British prison expertise to regimes with appalling human rights records, including Saudi Arabia and China – is to be closed down.Michael Gove, the justice secretary, has ordered the closure of Just Solutions International, telling MPs it was because “of the need to focus
  
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• David Cameron opposes any move to legalise assisted dying

  10-09-2015 14:18
  
  The prime minister’s personal interjection comes as MPs are due to debate Rob Marris’s private members bill David Cameron does not favour any move to legalise assisted dying, Downing Street has said.MPs are due to debate the ethically fraught issue in the House of Commons for the first time in around 20 years on Friday, after Labour’s Rob Marris laid a private members bill that would give terminally ill patients the right to die.Related: In a culture that abuses its elders, thi
  
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• Assisted dying: David Cameron opposes any move to legalise

  10-09-2015 14:18
  
  The prime minister’s personal interjection comes as MPs are due to debate Rob Marris’s private members bill David Cameron does not favour any move to legalise assisted dying, Downing Street has said.MPs are due to debate the ethically fraught issue in the House of Commons for the first time in around 20 years on Friday, after Labour’s Rob Marris laid a private members bill that would give terminally ill patients the right to die.Related: MPs debate and vote on the assisted dyin
  
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• Court fees 'punish domestic violence victims', magistrates group says

  10-09-2015 13:04
  
  Magistrates Association warns that criminal courts charges introduced in April ‘take money out of poorer families by punishing victim and perpetrator’Victims of domestic violence, as well as the perpetrators, are being punished by mandatory criminal courts charges imposed by the government, according to the Magistrates Association.The accusation by Richard Monkhouse, the organisation’s national chairman, is a sign of mounting judicial unease over the Ministry of Justice’s
  
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• Tribunal fees discouraging conciliation, peers told

  10-09-2015 13:00 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Legal aid cuts and employment tribunal fees impede enforcement of Equality Act, select committee hears.
  
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• SRA puts back decision on client account alternative

  10-09-2015 08:06 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Regulator defers decision until a wider consultation on changes to the accounts rules.
  
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• This trade union bill will undermine our fundamental human right to protest | Vince Cable and Frances O’Grady

  10-09-2015 08:00
  
  Britain does not have a strike problem – so why the need for new legislation? The government should be working constructively with unions to raise productivityThe Conservative government plans legislation later this year that will heavily circumscribe workers’ already limited freedom to take industrial action.Neither the coalition, nor the previous Labour government, saw any need to revisit strike legislation. So, what has changed? Related: Government's trade union proposals not fit
  
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