Legal News

Strangulation and homicide connected with the end of a relationship will be made statutory aggravating factors for murder, the Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood has confirmed.

Former financial services ombudsman Walter Merricks’ class action against Mastercard has entered unprecedented territory after the litigation funder opposed a potential settlement.

The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) has called for a ‘cultural shift’ in the way lawyers handle complaints.

UK law is flourishing, with the value of legal services exports rising nearly 40% in two years from £6.7bn in 2021 to £9.5bn in 2023, according to Law Society analysis of Office for National Statistics figures.

Former chair of the Criminal Bar Association Jo Sidhu KC, who led the 2022 criminal barrister strikes, has been found guilty of professional misconduct by the Bar Tribunals and Adjudication Service panel. 

Former solicitor Phil Shiner, previously principal of Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), has been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment suspended for two years, by Judge Christopher Hehir at Southwark Crown Court. 

A judicial academy has opened, with the aim of helping up to 500 legal executive lawyers become judges in the next five years.

A firm which helped victims of the Windrush scandal and a junior lawyer who helped design British Red Cross policies and also supported death row inmates with appeals are among the prizewinners recognised at the 2024 LawWorks Pro Bono Awards

Foreign judgments can serve as the basis for bankruptcy or winding-up petitions even if not formally recognised in the courts of England and Wales, two recent judgments confirm. However, the process is not automatic, as Lauren Pardoe, partner, and Camilla Pratt, senior associate, in Rosling King’s dispute resolution group, write in this week’s NLJ.

The Family Procedure Rules (FPR) have changed. In this week’s NLJ, David Emmerson, partner at Anthony Gold, takes a detailed look at the new rulebook, particularly the powers granted by Pt 3 on case management and the use of non-court dispute resolution procedures.