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NLJ this week: Gold reports on difficulties in court & the case that missed

28 July 2023
Issue: 8035 / Categories: Legal News , Civil way , Procedure & practice , CPR
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Lack of personnel is creating havoc in court. In this week’s NLJ, former district judge Stephen Gold writes on ‘the mess’ in family courts where ‘frequent and widespread difficulties’ are arising due to a shortage of qualified legal representatives to cross-examine vulnerable witnesses.

The shortage is leading to an extraordinary and contradictory predicament where judges may have to ask the questions themselves ‘notwithstanding the guidance that the court should not itself conduct the cross-examination’.

Following this theme, Gold’s 'Civil way' column reports on the lack of compliant bids received for duty solicitors in housing possession cases.

He covers a highly relevant case that missed the deadline for inclusion in the Senior Courts Costs Office guide, and discusses consumer protection following the recent Supreme Court judgment on the Quincecare duty where a customer was tricked by fraudsters.

For pure Gold, see here.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Jersey litigation lead appointed to global STEP Council

mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

Firm invests in future talent with new training cohort

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

Investment banking veteran appointed as chairman to drive global growth

NEWS
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
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