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Sunshine and showers

I work in an arena where mistakes are not acceptable. As a professional indemnity lawyer, my day job involves dealing with complaints and claims against fellow professionals who are alleged to have got something wrong. Any proven errors can be punishable by a loss of reputation and money.

Smokers cannot claim 'human right' to smoke, Court of Appeal decides

Smokers claiming they have a 'human right' to use tobacco have been dealt a blow by the Court of Appeal.

Friends in high places

'Diversification' is a buzz word very much in vogue at the moment. It is important to have a diverse profession, a diverse judiciary, and presumably diverse participants in the whole jolly thing, without whom we are all twiddling our thumbs and fiddling with paperclips. Curiously, everybody feels that they are on the wrong end of diversification, except for (almost) the very people without whom we are all twiddling our thumbs and fiddling with paperclips.

Update: licensing

Roy Light discusses underage sales of alcohol, private hire licences and out of area working, licence conditions and the responsibilities of premises licence holders

Update: wills and probate

Helen Bryant considers cases involving claims by extended family members under the Inheritance Act, proving secret trusts, propriety estoppel and inheritance tax

Read between the lines

The European Court of Justice decision that computer processes which read and make temporary copies of published work should be regarded as breaching copyright is illogical, says Paul Stanley NO

Plugging the gap

As legal aid turns 60, Jon Robins explores possible solutions to the system's failures

New deal

The SRA's new powers should enable it to deal with cases more efficiently and fairly, but is it a better deal for the regulated, asks Tony Guise