Lawyer news

• Lammy's backtrack on juries fails to impress lawyers

  02-12-2025 16:58 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  City lawyers say judge-only trials will increase administratrive burden on bench and create perverse incentives.
  
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• Lammy doubles down on jury plan

  05-12-2025 11:48 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Ministry of Justice figures suggest Crown court backlog could hit 135,100 by 2030.
  
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• 'Failed merger talks': why Wright Hassall went under

  05-12-2025 10:59 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  179-year old firm spoke to more than two dozen different parties but couldn’t find a partner, administrator reports.
  
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• Administrators report reveals why Wright Hassall went under

  05-12-2025 10:59 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Numerous discussions took place about a non-distressed purchase of long-established firm but were unsuccessful.
  
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• Society to research feasibility of independent defence union

  05-12-2025 09:10 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Committee of inquiry issues recommendations on supporting solicitors subject to disciplinary proceedings.
  
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• RSF massacres left Sudanese city ‘a slaughterhouse’, satellite images show

  05-12-2025 09:00
  Up to 150,000 residents of El Fasher are missing since North Darfur capital fell to paramilitary Rapid Support ForcesThe Sudanese city of El Fasher resembles a “massive crime scene”, with large piles of bodies heaped throughout its streets as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) work to destroy evidence of the scale of their massacre.Six weeks after the RSF seized the city, corpses have been gathered together in scores of piles to await burial in mass graves or cremated in hug
  
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• Gaps in UK migration statistics hamper public debate and policy decisions, study shows

  05-12-2025 08:00
  Official data cannot show what impact ECHR has on asylum cases, says leading thinktank Migration ObservatoryGaps in official migration statistics are hampering public debate and policy decisions including on cases relating to human rights laws, according to a leading thinktank.The University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory has identified 10 areas where information is lacking, including immigration enforcement and returns, and the size of the population living undocumented in the UK. Cont
  
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• Solicitor twice cautioned for cocaine possession has conditions on practice lifted

  05-12-2025 01:34 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Former magic circle practitioner had failed to disclose a second police caution to his employers in 2018.
  
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• Practice conditions lifted on ex-magic circle lawyer twice cautioned for cocaine possession

  05-12-2025 01:34 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Practitioner had failed to disclose a second police caution to his employers in 2018.
  
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• Experts urge release of boat strike video as US admiral denies ‘kill them all’ order

  04-12-2025 21:43
  Democrat Jim Himes calls footage ‘one of the most troubling scenes’ he’s observed in public serviceAnalysis: Killing of survivors sparks outrage – but entire US ‘drug boat’ war is legally shakyTop Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress on Thursday said that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had not ordered the military to kill surviving members of a deadly attack on a boat alleged to be carrying drugs in the Caribbean, but differed over whether the
  
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• US lawmakers call for inquiry into second US military strike on alleged Caribbean drug boat

  04-12-2025 19:32
  Democratic representative Jim Himes, who saw footage of attack, called it ‘one of the most troubling scenes’ he’s observed in public serviceAnalysis: Killing of survivors sparks outrage – but entire US ‘drug boat’ war is legally shakyA Democratic congressman described an unedited video of an extrajudicial military strike that killed two survivors in the Caribbean as “one of the most troubling scenes” he’s seen in public service, as human righ
  
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• Farage criticises BBC over racism allegations and claims one fellow pupil said he was ‘offensive’ but not racist – as it happened

  04-12-2025 19:01
  This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story hereNigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said that in Essex county council elections were postponed. He said district councils were being replaced with a new “pretty amorphous unitary authority”. Because of that, the area also needed “a clear elected figure”, a mayor, he said.Fahnbulleh said the government wanted to create strong, unitary councils. He said that would be a difficult concept for Reform UK to understand
  
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• Dryrobe wins trademark case against rival waterproof changing coat D-Robe

  04-12-2025 18:40
  Favourite with cold water swimmers wins court case in London forcing brand to stop selling infringing itemsDryrobe, the maker of huge waterproof towel-lined coats favoured by cold water swimming fans, has won a trademark case against a smaller label that must now stop selling items under the D-Robe brand within a week.A judge at the high court in London ruled the company was guilty of passing off its D-Robe changing robes and other goods as Dryrobe products and knew it was infringing its bigger
  
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• LiPs complaining more about barristers, regulator reveals

  04-12-2025 17:47 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  BSB’s 2024-25 annual report also reveals reports of bullying and harassment almost doubling from previous year.
  
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• Government consults on legal framework for facial recognition

  04-12-2025 15:03 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Minister acknowledges 'legitimate concerns about this powerful technology'.
  
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• Could Reform UK and the Tories merge? – podcast

  04-12-2025 15:00
  Nigel Farage was handed a £9m donation this week, amid reports he said elsewhere that a deal with the Conservatives before the general election was ‘inevitable’. John Harris speaks to Kiran Stacey about what this means for Reform UK. They also discuss David Lammy’s plan to scrap some jury trials, and answer questions from Politics Weekly UK listeners Continue reading...
  
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• Celebrating a decade of the DWF Foundation

  04-12-2025 14:50 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Driving impact as a community investment manager.
  
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• Solicitor rebuked over duplicate asylum statements

  04-12-2025 13:19 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Regulator says sole practitioner allowed unauthorised person to submit application.
  
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• Solicitor, 30, killed in RTA helped three people through organ donation, inquest hears

  04-12-2025 13:03 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Emily Thornton-Sandy was involved in a head-on collision with a 90-year-old driver travelling the wrong way down an A-road.
  
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• UK workers will get unfair dismissal rights after six months from 1 January 2027

  04-12-2025 12:58
  Angela Rayner drops plan to force earlier implementation after talks, says source, with start date to be announced in CommonsUK politics live – latest updatesMinisters will speed up the implementation of protections against unfair dismissal for workers so that they start from 2027 after brokering a compromise with Angela Rayner.Rayner, the former deputy prime minister and architect of the employment rights bill, had been planning to lay an amendment to ensure the protections come into forc
  
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• Warning to lawyers helping LiP with AI-generated authorities

  04-12-2025 11:59 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  More than two fake cases were cited in submissions by a claimant seeking £2 million in compensation.
  
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• Former law firm owner jailed for ignoring freezing order

  04-12-2025 11:15 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Dorota Newman found to have engaged in ‘deliberate policy of non-engagement’.
  
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• ‘I don’t take no for an answer’: how a small group of women changed the law on deepfake porn

  04-12-2025 11:00
  The new Data (Use and Access) Act, which criminalises intimate image abuse, is a huge victory won fast in a space where progress is often glacially slowFor Jodie*, watching the conviction of her best friend, and knowing she helped secure it, felt at first like a kind of victory. It was certainly more than most survivors of deepfake image-based abuse could expect.They had met as students and bonded over their shared love of music. In the years since graduation, he’d also become her support
  
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• Probation officers in England and Wales to be given self-defence training after stabbings

  04-12-2025 08:00
  Exclusive: Pilot schemes for bodycams, knife arches and metal detectors in probation offices also approved after attacks in Oxford and PrestonProbation officers will be given self-defence training, bleed kits and body-worn cameras for the first time under plans before ministers in the wake of two stabbings, the Guardian has learned.Knife arches and handheld metal-detecting wands, which can be used to search people for weapons, have been approved for pilot schemes in selected offices. Continue re
  
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• I called my recipe book Sabzi – vegetables. But the name was trademarked. And my legal ordeal began

  04-12-2025 08:00
  The granting of patents and trademarks to foods and words from the global south is part of a long colonial grab. It’s time to realise we share what we cook, and what we call itVegetables, in my experience, rarely cause controversy. Yet last month I found myself in the middle of a legal storm over who gets to own the word sabzi – the Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Persian, Dari and Pashto word for cooked veg or fresh greens. It was a story as absurd as it was stressful, a chain of delis threat
  
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• Claims lawyers back end to ‘gamesmanship’ over email service bans

  04-12-2025 01:10 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Association of Personal Injury Lawyers says outdated rules are causing delays and extra expense.
  
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• Sevenfold increase in serious incidents at UK immigration detention centre, report finds

  04-12-2025 01:01
  Incidents rose from four in 2023 to 28 in 2024 as 22 Serco officers also investigated for serious misconduct at Gatwick centreThere has been a sevenfold increase in serious incidents at an immigration detention centre near Gatwick airport, a watchdog report has revealed.There were 28 serious incidents at Gatwick immigration removal centre in 2024 compared with four recorded in 2023, the report from the independent monitoring board said. These included large protests and men jumping on to anti-su
  
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• What juries can do that professional judges can’t | Letters

  03-12-2025 18:34
  Jurors bring a humane, rounded perspective to the system, says Simeon Wallis. Plus letters from Diana Good and Francis FitzGibbon KCSimon Jenkins implies that removing juries will give us the benefits of European inquisitorial judicial systems or the enlightened Scandinavian approach to justice (David Lammy is right to slash the use of juries – it’s an open-and-shut case, 28 November).Neither the Leveson report nor David Lammy’s memo suggest anything of the kind. They seek to r
  
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• Mining giant BHP fails to block Pogust Goodhead’s US witness move

  03-12-2025 17:36 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  'Parties are entitled to make use of litigation advantages…if available,' Mr Justice Waksman rules.
  
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• Firm's response 'attempted to mislead' employment tribunal

  03-12-2025 17:10 via lawgazette.co.uk
  
  Employment tribunal judge finds family law firm failed to comply with judge’s orders over disclosure.
  
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