Football was lucky in 1985. Both Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo were born but not immediately signed up by Manchester United. A wide breadth of legislation received assent embracing areas of landlord and tenant, companies, insolvency, surrogacy arrangements, child abduction, enduring powers of attorney at al. Walter Merricks, for whom collective proceedings and Mastercard had yet to form into a dream, and who had spent around three years exposing in the NLJ what was going on at various institutions, including the Law Society, ceased his column. Among his disclosures had been the departure from the Society in controversial circumstances of its last secretary of the professional and public relations department, and the withdrawal of a former MP from his application to succeed. So where had Merricks gone? To the Law Society. For dinner? No, as assistant secretary-general, heading the communications and law and practice directorate divisions,
Archive: Civil way: 24 February 2023
Stephen Gold discovers a criminal poet, Clerkenwell solicitors cut up rough over PACE pay, & the NLJ gives the thumbs up to Spider Woman
MOVERS & SHAKERS
London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy
Fieldfisher partner appointed president as LSLA marks milestone year
Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles
Firm promotes two lawyers to partnership across employment and family
Foot Anstey—five promotions
Firm promotes five lawyers to partnership across key growth areas
NEWS
Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’
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