Each of us will recognise a seminal moment in our personal and professional lives. In our personal lives these moments often relate to family: the birth of a child, a wedding or the death of a close family member or friend. In our professional lives as lawyers it may be the day you qualify, the… Read More »
Key recommendations from the Review of Civil Litigation Costs Final Report of Lord Justice Jackson, published 14th January, 2010 A resumé of the key recommendations may be found on page 463 of the 584 page report [click here to view the report in PDF format]. However, here is a selection of the most important ones: Success… Read More »
Latin phrases used to be an important part of a lawyer’s armoury, if only to confuse those without a classical education into believing that a mundane set of words must be important because of the solemnity with which they were intoned. Doubtless this also justified instructing a lawyer and a fee as the ordinary person… Read More »
The county of Middlesex was the ancient home of the Middel Saxons. Originally it covered an area stretching from the western edge of Essex to include such ancient foundations like the City of London, through to Westminster Abbey and out to more modern “cathedrals” like Heathrow. On the edge of what used to be known… Read More »
Continuing last month’s seasonal theme (Mirror, mirror on the wall 19th November), I was delighted to see that there is a website dedicated to all things panto called www.its-behind-you.com Fairy godmothers and magic lamps do not feature much, I suspect, in the setting up of vehicles to provide outside funding to litigants who cannot afford to fund… Read More »
Legal Week of 12th November published an article by Craig Earnshaw and Nick Athanasi of FTI Consulting entitled E-discovery Demystified The authors asked whether e-discovery technology was too far out of their comfort zones for lawyers despite its potential to save time money and effort. They set out to demonstrate that the process of electronic… Read More »
“May you live in interesting times” is reputedly the English version or paraphrase of an ancient Chinese curse. Whatever its origin, the saying crops up in a variety of differing situations including a speech by Robert F Kennedy in 1966, a letter from Austen Chamberlain to a member of the US House of Representatives and… Read More »
The 3rd Annual Electronically Stored Information (ESI) Trends Report by Kroll Ontrack reveals that there is a significant gap between the existence of corporate document retention policies and ESI discovery readiness strategies. According to the Kroll Ontrack news release, ESI management is top of mind for corporations but effective implementation is falling. This year’s survey also… Read More »
I missed the publication of the Report of the Scottish Civil Courts Review when it was launched on 30th September 2009 by the Lord Justice Clerk, the Rt Hon Lord Gill. The report is in two volumes and contains 15 chapters and a synopsis. The terms of reference are: To review the provision of civil… Read More »
What are we coming to? Apparently, a recent case against five men accused of starting a brawl and charged with affray was dropped last week because the CPS did not manage to complete the photocopying in time. Six months, yes six, after the charges were brought, the CPS had not got the paperwork in order… Read More »