Lawyer news

• Supreme court to hear Christian argument for contraception exemption

  06-11-2015 20:04
  
  Religious groups are demanding full exemption from the requirement to provide insurance coverage of contraception under Barack Obama’s healthcare lawThe US supreme court on Friday agreed to hear appeals brought by Christian groups who are demanding full exemption from the requirement to provide insurance covering contraception under Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. The nine justices will consider seven related cases on whether nonprofit groups that oppose the requirement on r
  
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• Abandoned MoJ outsourcing project cost £8.7m

  06-11-2015 17:57 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Department opted to abandon policy of finding single contractor for court fine collection.
  
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• Louisiana booksellers challenge law that puts age restrictions on bookshop sites

  06-11-2015 16:27
  
  New Orleans stores launch proceedings against legislation intended to restrict sales of inappropriate material to childrenTwo New Orleans bookshops are challenging a new Louisiana law that requires websites publishing material deemed harmful to minors to verify the age of their users, saying it would make them appear incorrectly to be “adult” bookstores.Passed earlier this summer, the law says that failure to “electronically acknowledge and attest that the person seeking to acc
  
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• Lady Hale: supreme court should be ashamed if diversity does not improve

  06-11-2015 16:01
  
  UK’s only female supreme court judge criticises all-male, all-white appointments and says a search committee should be set up to find candidatesThe UK’s supreme court should be “ashamed” if it does not radically improve its diversity in the next round of judicial appointments, according to its only female judge, Lady Hale.Over the past decade all justices selected to sit on the UK’s highest court have been male, white and predominantly privately educated, she told a
  
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• This surveillance bill threatens investigative journalism | Gavin Millar

  06-11-2015 15:06
  
  If sources understand they can be identified after communicating with a journalist via a smartphone or laptop they will be reluctant to risk dismissal or prosecutionThe free speech provision of the European convention on human rights, Article 10, gives journalists a strong right to protect their confidential sources of information.Yet the draft investigatory powers bill, published on Wednesday as a replacement for the outdated Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, fails to guarantee this funda
  
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• Struck-off solicitor 'failed miserably' in duty to protect lenders

  06-11-2015 15:01 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Stephen John Chubb sanctioned by Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over misconduct in property transaction.
  
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• Supreme court may decide to hear most consequential abortion cases in decades

  06-11-2015 14:59
  
  Decision in Texas or Mississippi could lead to ‘most drastic reduction of the availability of abortion at any point since Roe v Wade’, says expertThe US supreme court will decide as early as Friday whether to hear a case that could tee up the most consequential ruling on abortion rights in 23 years: a challenge to a Texas law that threatens to shut down half the state’s clinics, or an appeal from the state of Mississippi defending a law that would close the only remaining abort
  
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• Leading judge tells expert witnesses to find 'common ground'

  06-11-2015 14:58 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Supreme Court justice Lord Hughes says courts are under time and cost pressures.
  
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• Thank you, disability campaigners, for the difference you’ve made to my life | Lucy Webster

  06-11-2015 14:30
  
  Without people like Jane Campbell, who fought for the Disability Discrimination Act 20 years ago, I can’t imagine where I would have been todayI was 11 months old when the Disability Discrimination Act became law, 20 years ago this week. As I approach my 21st birthday, it’s sobering to think that when I was born, there wasn’t a single piece of legislation protecting the rights of disabled people in the UK and that as I lay on the floor with my soft toys, people just like me &nd
  
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• New UK law could STOP you watching PORN for life - Express.co.uk

  06-11-2015 14:25
  Express.co.uk
  New UK law could STOP you watching PORN for life
  Express.co.uk
  A NEW surveillance bill could force internet firms to keep a record of ALL of your online activity for a year. By Aaron Brown Aaron Brown. PUBLISHED: 13:09, Fri, Nov 6, 2015 | UPDATED: 13:10, Fri, Nov 6, 2015. Internet firms will have to keep a record ...
  U.K. Users' Online Activity To Be Logged Under New Surveillance LawTechCrunch
  UK cyber-spy law takes Snowden's revelations of mass surveillance – and sets ...Th
  

• Police complaints head appointed new chief legal ombudsman

  06-11-2015 13:50 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Kathryn Stone will join the organisation in January.
  
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• Inquiry to examine claims police spied on Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone

  06-11-2015 12:55
  
  Whistleblower’s revelations that police kept secret files on 10 Labour politicians to be investigated by public inquiryA public inquiry is to scrutinise allegations that police covertly monitored Labour MPs including Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone in the 1990s.Lord Justice Pitchford, the senior judge leading the public inquiry into undercover policing, ruled this week that an important part of his inquiry would focus on the claims that the police collected information about the politica
  
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• Lawyers can't be expected to plug the gap in legal aid provision | Catherine McKinnell

  06-11-2015 12:24
  
  The government needs to face up to its responsibilities rather than rely on the goodwill of the legal profession, if access to justice for all is to be preservedThis week is National Pro Bono Week, when we celebrate the legal profession’s provision of free legal services to those who otherwise cannot afford them. Related: By denying poor people justice, we are denying ourselves a functioning justice system No matter how positive pro bono work is, it cannot fully step in where state provisi
  
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• Don’t expect lawyers to plug the gaps in legal aid provision | Catherine McKinnell

  06-11-2015 12:24
  
  The government needs to face up to its responsibilities rather than rely on the goodwill of the legal profession, if access to justice for all is to be preservedThis week is National Pro Bono Week, when we celebrate the legal profession’s provision of free legal services to those who otherwise cannot afford them. Related: By denying poor people justice, we are denying ourselves a functioning justice system No matter how positive pro bono work is, it cannot fully step in where state provisi
  
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• LAA setback over legal aid contracts

  06-11-2015 11:20 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Unsuccessful bidders have issued proceedings in 69 out of 85 procurement areas.
  
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• Agency hit by deluge of legal aid tender actions

  06-11-2015 11:20 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Unsuccessful bidders have issued proceedings in 69 out of 85 procurement areas.
  
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• Trans-Pacific Partnership: four key issues to watch out for

  06-11-2015 05:56
  
  On the words ‘climate change’ being absent from the TPP, trade minister Andrew Robb says: ‘It’s not an agreement on with climate change, it’s a trade agreement’Overnight, thousands of pages of text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership have been released, ending months of secrecy. As experts around the world begin the task of poring over the detail, here are four key issues to watch.
  EnvironmentRelated: TPP or not TPP? What's the Trans-Pacific Partnership and shoul
  
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