South Africa
No
loafing for Bizos - 3 July
Human rights lawyer George Bizos has had enough rest and is
anxious to get back to work. He said he was not considering
quitting his job any time soon but has told "the young
lawyers to be brave enough to tell me to pack my bags when they
feel that it is time for me to quit".
Bizos is also a presidential appointee to the Judicial Service
Commission. - Mail
& Guardian website
Why
Cape legal twist looks like a demolition of justice for poor
- 2 July
In May, backyard shack-dwellers with no access to formal housing
took their case against the City of Cape Town to the Western Cape
High Court. They were represented by the law firm, Smith Tabata
Buchanan Boyes, which took on the case at a substantially reduced
rate at the request of the South African Council of Churches
(SACC). Abahlali won the first phase of its battle when it secured
an urgent interdict against the city, preventing the demolition of
any shack or structure at Macassar Village without an order of
court. On June 18, the city wrote to Smith Tabata Buchanan Boyes,
terminating all the city's contracts for legal work with the firm.
The letter from the director of legal services notes : "It
has come to our attention that whilst acting on behalf of the City
of Cape Town . . . you also acted for a third party against the
city. The city is therefore terminating its mandate with your
firm". If the City of Cape Town's termination relates to the
Abahlali matter, this is a very worrying precedent. If reproduced
across other law firms and in other municipalities, it would be a
devastating blow to pro-poor litigation and would substantially
undermine the government's objective of securing access to justice
for all. - Business
Day website
Keyphrase :
Legal Services Charter
Storm
erupts after axing of legal firm - 3 July
A heated debate has broken out in legal and academic circles over
the City of Cape Town's decision to axe a top law firm from its
panel of attorneys for taking on a case for a group of poor
litigants against the municipality. - IOL
website
The
Rule of Law and "conflicts of interests" - 2
July
One of the most important but often neglected aspects of the Rule
of Law is the requirement that individuals must be able to enforce
their rights and legal entitlements in a court of law. At the
heart of the Rule of Law is the notion that we are a rule-based
society and that everyone - no matter how powerful or weak - must
have the equal chance to enforce their rights and legal
entitlements as set out by law. Yet, when politicians
talk about the Rule of Law they often do not deal with this harsh
reality which negatively affect the legitimacy of the courts and
of the legal system in South Africa. For some communities relief
can come in the form of the Legal Resources Centre, the Women's
Legal Centre or private law firms who do pro-bono work or
otherwise assist poor litigants at reduced cost. One such firm is
Smith Tabata Buchanan Boyes who recently represented backyard
shack-dwellers with no access to formal housing in a case against
the City of Cape Town (at a reduced rate at the request of the
South African Council of Churches). - Pierre de Vos on the Constitutionally
Speaking website
Dirk
Prinsloo, the boy from Belarus - 30 June
Chances are that by the time you read this I will be arguing, what
is hopefully, my final matter as a criminal attorney in the
Regional Court of Witbank. It is a culpable homicide involving the
death of a young man which was occasioned by a car crash that took
place about three years ago. Hopefully you lot will be having a
far more enjoyable day than I will. While I have no doubt that I
will miss the day-to-day war of attrition that is a criminal trial
I have no regrets in choosing to follow my first love which is
writing and in this regard Thought Leader and the Richmark
Sentinel are full-time and far more enjoyable. - Michael
Trapido on the Thought
Leader blog
Australia
Lawyer
shortage in regional Australia - 9 July
A new survey has found there is a shortage of lawyers in regional
and rural Australia. The Law Council of
Australia's Rural Regional and Remote Area Lawyers survey
found 67% of WA principals surveyed indicated they did not have
enough lawyers to meet the legal needs of the community. The
report also highlighted problems with retaining country lawyers
with 52% of respondents saying they would leave a regional area in
the next five years. The President of the Law
Society of Western Australia Dudley Stow says the situation
reflects the same problems in attracting doctors and teachers to
the regions. "Payment or salary is not necessarily an
issue," he said. "It's the remoteness and the feeling of
isolation, a lot of the things you hear about doctors who are in
the same sort of position. - ABC
News website
Swine
flu warning as legal fraternity mourns - 7 July
The Australian Medical Association has warned that more swine
flu-related deaths are likely in the Northern Territory after a
prominent Darwin lawyer yesterday became the first such death in
the Territory. Colleagues of Ian Morris, a former president of the
Northern Territory Law Society, say they were devastated by news
of his passing. - ABC
News website
Passion
makes advocates go to water - 10 July
Owen Davis admits to some surprise when he first came across a
bunch of surfing lawyers. "I was at work one morning reading
the weekly email the Law Society
sends out and I saw this picture of a guy getting barrelled and I
thought 'what the hell's this'," Davis recalled. Before long
he signed up to the Australian Lawyers
Surfing Association, an organisation of about 100 members
that prides itself on its charity work - and an ability to find a
good break. ALSA has also had an annual conference in Bali since
2007 with papers on commercial law, environment and development
law, criminal law and land rights. Importantly, it boasts a
flexible timetable. "Conference times are planned around
tides and winds so attendees can confidently expect to get some
good waves," says the brochure for this year's gathering at
Lombok next month. - The
Australian website
Ireland
Solicitors
default on stamp duty bills - 5 July
Solicitors are failing to pay the Revenue Commissioners millions
of euro in stamp duty that they have received from clients. From
2006 to 2008 the Law Society had to step in and compensate the
Revenue on over 200 occasions each year after solicitors failed to
pay stamp duty they had received from clients for the purchase of
their houses. However in a serious escalation of the problem in
the first five months of this year solicitors have defaulted on
the payment of stamp duty on over 155 occasions. - Independent
website
United Kingdom
Law
Society in conveyancing consultation - 6 July
The Law Society is conducting a consultation into the handling of
conveyancing transactions from start to finish. The aim is to
establish ways to improve the process to benefit the public. The
move comes at a time of unprecedented challenges in the housing
market as a result of the economic downturn. These challenges
combined with the creation of alternative business structures,
increasing anti-money laundering requirements and separate
security demands from the Land Registry, changing client
expectations and new technology, are changing the environment
within which solicitors practice. - Mortgage
Introducer website
Linklaters
trounces rivals as UK's biggest firm - 3 July
Linklaters today revealed a rise in full-year revenue, edging past
rivals Clifford Chance and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to
become Britain's highest-grossing law firm. Turnover at the City
firm for the year to April 30 was £1.298 billion, £11 million
higher than the £1.287 billion full-year turnover revealed
yesterday by Freshfields. Clifford Chance, once the world's
biggest law firm by revenue, slipped to £1.26 billion for the
latest financial year. - Times
Online website
Freshfields
hits top spot in legal fees league - 3 July
Lucrative work on the bailout of the financial sector has helped
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer overtake Clifford Chance to become
Britain's highest grossing law firm. Freshfields defied the
turmoil in the global legal market to increase full-year turnover
by almost a tenth and hold profits at the previous year’s record
levels. - Times
Online website
Prince
William made a barrister - 7 July
Prince William has been made an honorary barrister - but promised
not to practise, "except for the odd speeding ticket".
In a ceremony at London's Middle Temple he was also called to the
Bench, the ancient Inns of Court's governing body. The
second-in-line to the throne is the sixth member of the Royal
Family to be made a Royal Bencher, following in the footsteps of
the Queen Mother, and his mother Diana, Princess of Wales. - BBC
News website
United States
Midsize
law firms pick up clients as companies turn from pricey giants
- 6 July
To cut costs during the recession, US businesses increasingly are
handing work to less expensive small and midsize firms, typically
those with fewer than 200 attorneys. And while their larger
counterparts are laying off lawyers, some smaller firms are hiring
attorneys to keep up with new business. - Wall
Street Journal website
Law
firm billing rates - 7 July
We've been extensively chronicling salary cuts for
associates. One consistent firm rationale for cutting salaries is
that firm clients are no longer willing to pay for junior
associates. The consistent counter-argument is that clients don't
care what associates get paid, clients care about what clients are
charged. - Above
the Law blog
US
News Media Group and Best Lawyers to rank law firms - 7
July
US News Media Group, the nation's leading source of rankings and
service journalism, and Best Lawyers, the leading survey of
lawyers worldwide, today announced the expansion of teh US News
signature "America's Best" series to include rankings of
law firms. The venture will kick off with an announcement sent to
more than 35 000 lawyers across the United States, followed by a
detailed survey that will be conducted this fall. - US
News release on the Wall Street Journal website
Notes
from the Breadline : Fear of falling - 8 July
At the Big Law Firm where we used to work, my friend Giovanna was
the kind of associate that every partner dreams of. She spent
nights and weekends at the office. She took on the most tedious
tasks without complaining. She did the work of three people. She
was conscientious. Sometimes, the partner for whom she worked
would call her late at night, at home, with a frantic last-minute
request for something that probably could have been done earlier
in the day; Giovanna would turn around and go back to work to get
it done. Giovanna survived working for this partner for four
years, but she did not survive the round of layoffs that
eventually trimmed the herd at the Big Law Firm. But Giovanna is
one of the lucky ones. - Above
the Law website
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