Legal News

A Staffordshire magistrate who swore in court has been issued with a formal warning for misconduct. 

Dana Denis-Smith, founder of a ground-breaking campaign to champion women in law, is one of several lawyers to receive gongs in the New Year’s Honours List

Prenups could be made binding along with sweeping reform of financial remedies law, under Law Commission proposals

Lawyers have welcomed the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision that success fees are not covered by ‘financial need’ provisions in wills disputes

Solicitors are to receive a criminal legal aid rates rise while Crown Court sitting days will increase in number to tackle the still-rising cases backlog

Tech-powered legal services provider, the AIIC Group, treated its consultants to an inspiring address by Dragons’ Den investor Deborah Meaden, at its annual consultant conference

Judges and magistrates sentencing strangulation and suffocation offences have been issued with a guideline for the first time

From January 2025, independent schools will be subject to 20% VAT, leading to much head-scratching by school bursars. Writing in this week’s NLJ, Liz Brownsell, partner & head of charities at Birketts, and Kieran Smith, VAT partner at Crowe UK, look at a variety of options independent schools might consider to make the best of the situation.

Physician-assisted suicide should be the preferred term rather than ‘assisted dying’ when discussing the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, writes Professor John Keown, senior research scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, in this week’s NLJ.

Whether it’s a call to ‘bring me more Sir Geoffreys’ or a prediction gleaned from assorted discussions that ‘a series of reforms look certain for 2025’ (read the column to find out more), The Insider aka Professor Dominic Regan, of City Law School, serves the perfect Christmas cocktail of light-hearted stories and serious topics in his column this week.