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14 February 2025
Issue: 8104 / Categories: Legal News , Procedure & practice , Civil way
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NLJ this week: Claimant issues, employment guidance & trade mark wisdom

Former district judge Stephen Gold highlights some unplanned side-effects of proposed legislation to include the names of claimants in the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines, in this week’s NLJ.

Gold’s Civil Way column warns that claimants may be ‘bombarded at the wrong office by registry snoopers’. He also covers the latest on leasehold reforms, the Ogden tables, and a double serving of recently issued guidance—on communicating with employment tribunal staff and, from the president, on taking oral evidence from persons abroad.

Gold also covers the cloudy lemon cider dispute between Thatchers and Aldi, noting that when Thatchers launched its drink in 2020, it ‘took the wise step of registering its packaging design as a trade mark’, which helped it win its infringement case.

He writes: ‘A flurry of trade mark applications to protect packaging designs can be expected on the back of Thatchers’ success: not hitherto a practice invariably adopted.’ 

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Clarke Willmott—Matthew Roach

Clarke Willmott—Matthew Roach

Partner joins commercial property team in Taunton office

Farrer & Co—Richard Lane

Farrer & Co—Richard Lane

Londstanding London firm appoints new senior partner

Bird & Bird—Sue McLean

Bird & Bird—Sue McLean

Commercial team in London welcomes technology specialist as partner

NEWS
What safeguards apply when trust corporations are appointed as deputy by the Court of Protection? 
Disputing parties are expected to take part in alternative dispute resolution (ADR), where this is suitable for their case. At what point, however, does refusing to participate cross the threshold of ‘unreasonable’ and attract adverse costs consequences?
When it comes to free legal advice, demand massively outweighs supply. 'Millions of people are excluded from access to justice as they don’t have anywhere to turn for free advice—or don’t know that they can ask for help,' Bhavini Bhatt, development director at the Access to Justice Foundation, writes in this week's NLJ
When an ex-couple is deciding who gets what in the divorce or civil partnership dissolution, when is it appropriate for a third party to intervene? David Burrows, NLJ columnist and solicitor advocate, considers this thorny issue in this week’s NLJ
NLJ's latest Charities Appeals Supplement has been published in this week’s issue
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