The Law Society Gazette

3 days ago | lawgazette.co.uk | Charlie Moloney

A Criminal Cases Review Commission applicant believed his sentence should be reduced because the victim’s social media posts did not display 'sufficiently traumatised behaviour', according to landmark research on digital communications. In a report commissioned by the CCRC and published by the Scottish Centre for Crime & Justice Research, researchers from Glasgow and Loughborough universities examined 119 CCRC applications involving rape and sexual offences.

3 days ago | lawgazette.co.uk | Charlie Moloney

A former managing partner of a Yorkshire firm has failed in his bid to argue he did not have the ability to pay up to £210,000 in costs. Michael Willis was diagnosed with cancer and went off sick from GWB Harthills LLP in 2018. He received payments from a permanent health insurance (PHI) scheme, but a ‘bitter dispute’ arose around whether the claimant could receive profit share paid into his pension in addition to the PHI payments, an employment appeal tribunal heard.

3 days ago | lawgazette.co.uk | Charlie Moloney

A solicitor has been struck off for working three jobs at the same time and billing them for the same hours. Belinda Sarkodie - who claimed to work 100 hours per week - had juggled jobs for Property Legal (Manchester) Limited (PLS), Wright & Lord Solicitors Limited (W&L) and Muve (Trading name Connect 2 Law) simultaneously, a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard.

3 days ago | lawgazette.co.uk | Paul Rogerson

‘What does a legal victory mean if compliance is optional?’ That was a question posed by Cherie Blair CBE KC today in a plenary session at London International Disputes Week on the impact of geopolitical instability. ‘We are at a moment of legal reckoning, because what we are witnessing is a slow fraying of the rules-based order that has underpinned global stability and cooperation since the end of WW2,’ she told an audience of litigators at Westminster’s QE11 centre.

4 days ago | lawgazette.co.uk | Bianca Castro

A solicitor who argued he was entitled to 40% of the fees billed and paid in respect of work done by others for a client has had his appeal dismissed by the Employment Appeal Tribunal. Alastair Dobbie, a solicitor and non-practising barrister, was engaged by Feltons Solicitors under an agreement in which he carried out duties as a consultant and was entitled to 40% of the fees billed, paid and received by the firm.