South
Africa
Bay
apartheid spy is still on attorneys' roll - 25 August
The controversy surrounding Vanessa Brereton's role as an
apartheid spy refuses to die down, with a former colleague
outraged that the Cape Law Society has been so slow in having
her struck from the Roll of Attorneys.
Cape Law
Society director Nalini Gangen said : "The society's
council considered all the relevant facts in the matter and
found Ms Brereton not to be a fit and proper person to remain on
the Roll of Attorneys. Should the application be successful,
(her) name will be removed from the Roll of Attorneys and she
will no longer be entitled to practise as such".
Gangen said the matter was supposed to have been heard on August
6, but postponed after numerous attempts to trace Brereton had
failed.
Ironically, Brereton visited her
mother in Port
Elizabeth this month following a horrific attack by robbers in
her Newton Park home on August 2. Advocate Glen Goosen, who had worked as a
clerk at the same law firm from 1988 to 1990, said it had been
so long since Brereton’s confession that he could not
understand why the Cape Law Society had still not managed to
strike her from the Roll of Attorneys. - Weekend
Post website
Court
bans rogue EL lawyer from practising - 4 September
Prominent East London lawyer Lindile Nompozolo has been
interdicted from practising as an attorney after
misappropriating money from clients.
The Grahamstown High Court yesterday granted the interdict
pending an application by the Cape Law
Society to permanently strike him from the roll of
attorneys. The Law Society alleged that Nompozolo had
misappropriated about R1.4m from money kept in trust for various
clients. - Dispatch Online
website
Australia
Justice
an easily admired, yet inaccessible Rolls Royce : Chief Justice
- 27 August
Western Australia's top judge last week called for an overhaul of
access to justice in the state. In a speech given at the
Australian Lawyers Alliance Western Australian State Conference,
Chief Justice Wayne Martin described the Australian justice
system as a Rolls Royce that the average Australian could only
admire rather than utilise. The Chief Justice said that a move
away from the adversarial system towards a more collegiate
approach would serve the community and the system best. - The
New Lawyer website
Pakistan
Pakistan's
lawyers above law? - 21 August
These days, their footage is all over the Pakistani news
channels. Lawyers, dressed in black suits and ties, on the
attack. Every few days seem to bring a new incident ; the
beating of a policeman ; a scuffle with members of the press
outside the high court in Lahore. The newspapers scream that
lawyers have become a public menace. The police are incensed. - BBC
News website
United
Kingdom
Solicitor
faces being struck off after fighting councils' care cuts - 21
August
A solicitor who helped thousands of people fight against cuts to
care services faces being struck off after the councils she
battled complained about her. Yvonne Hossack will appear at a
Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal next month. She is accused of
bringing her profession into disrepute. Ms Hossack, of Kettering,
Northants, who has been described as "a thorn in the side of
the establishment", could be fined £5 000, suspended or
kicked out of the profession altogether. She has issued the Home
Secretary, Alan Johnson, with a summons to appear as a witness
after he declined to publicly back her - despite privately
thanking her for fighting cuts in his Hull constituency. Mr
Johnson told Ms Hossack that she "done a brilliant job under
difficult circumstances" in fighting against the closure of a
care home. - Telegraph
website
United
States
'Billable
hour' under attack - 25 August
With the recession crimping legal budgets, some big companies are
fighting back against law firms' longstanding practice of billing
them by the hour. The companies are ditching the hourly structure
- which critics complain offers law firms an incentive to rack up
bigger bills - in favor of flat-fee contracts. One survey found an
increase of more than 50% this year in corporate spending on
alternatives to the traditional hourly-fee model. - Wall
Street Journal website
* * * Subscription required * * *
Under
attack, should the billable hour be concerned for its safety?
- 24 August
Heralding the death of the billable hour is much like predicting
the end of the world: eventually somebody is going to be right.
Has anything fundamentally changed this time around to make the
billable hour more susceptible to death? Here's the best argument.
- Above the Law blog
ABA
files suit against FTC over applying Red Flags rule to lawyers
- 27 August
The American Bar Association filed suit today in the US District
Court for the District of Columbia against the Federal Trade
Commission, seeking an injunction to block the application of the
so-called Red Flags Rule to practicing lawyers. As the BLT
previously reported, the bar association has been lobbying for
months to exempt lawyers from the regulations, which require
businesses and organizations that act as "creditors" to
establish a program for preventing identity theft. According to a
Federal Trade Commission guide, the program must identify
potential areas of vulnerability within a business and include
policies for detecting and responding to red flags. - The
Blog of Legal Times website
Archaic
rules hobble attorneys - 7 September
As the economy sputters and every morning's inbox is greeted with
news of law firm layoffs and "out of business" signs, it
highlights an obstacle to the business of law that is unique to
this profession - often-stringent state bar rules of professional
conduct related to advertising and marketing. - The
National Law Journal website
Recovering
fees a struggle for firms - 3 September
Law firms are dealing with more fee-recovery issues and some have
been forced to delay staff salaries, or launch disputes against
non-paying clients. The problem has taken its toll recently in the
United States, where a number of disputes have been launched
between high-profile firms and longstanding clients. - ALB
Legal News website
In
transition? Don't let it bring you down - 5 August
Lawyers are facing an unprecedented period of transition. Good
lawyers who've done everything right are now unemployed.
Ambitious, bright law students have no jobs. Many other lawyers
face reduced hours, reduced pay, and lateral options appear
limited. In these challenging times, every lawyer should know any
transition, no matter how difficult, can be turned into an
opportunity. My own career includes transitions from private
practice to corporate counsel to legal coach. Certain fundamental
tactics give any lawyer the ability to make successful
transitions. These tactics may appear disarmingly simple. However,
if you execute them on a regular and consistent basis, you can
create a positive transition. - Article by Michael Moore on the State
Bar of Wisconsin website
Keeping
your practice afloat : legal marketing in turbulent times
Article by Sharon D Nelson and John W Simek on Sensei
Enterpries website
See
also : Attorneys
finding jobs on Twitter