THIS ISSUE
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.
NLJ's latest Charities Appeals Supplement has been published in this week’s issue.
Your mind is not a kettle. Product liability and neurotechnology is the subject of Crown Office Chambers barrister Harry Lambert’s fifth article in his astonishing series on neurotech law, in this week’s NLJ.
As it’s Christmas, and in lieu of frankincense and myrrh, NLJ offers a bumper two pages of Gold this week. Festive Civil Way topics include the bailiff dress code, PP arrears, DAPOs and the personal injury discount rate.
Will the latest arguments in favour of the Leadbeater Bill be as flawed as those that came before? Professor John Keown considers what lessons can be learnt from history
Dominic Regan presents A Christmas Carol: enter, the ghosts of Christmas past (the Solicitors Act 1974), present (the new intermediate track), & future (PACCAR legislation)
With a raft of unwanted changes on the horizon, Liz Brownsell & Kieran Smith explore some of the options available to charitable independent schools
Did the Supreme Court ask for a can of worms for Christmas? Ian Smith wraps up the year in employment law with some final twists & turns
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin
Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire
Gilson Gray—Jeremy Davy
Partner appointed as head of residential conveyancing for England
DR Solicitors—Paul Edels
Specialist firm enhances corporate healthcare practice with partner appointment
NEWS
In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives
Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School and the Frenkel Topping Group—AKA The insider—crowns Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP as his case of 2025 in his latest column for NLJ. The High Court’s decision—that non-authorised employees cannot conduct litigation, even under supervision—has sent shockwaves through the profession. Regan calls it the year’s defining moment for civil practitioners and reproduces a ‘cut-out-and-keep’ summary of key rulings from Mr Justice Sheldon
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