Risk & Compliance

Articles

Band of brothers

Laura Empson analyses what makes partnership a unique business organisation and considers how its special qualities can survive under the Legal Services Act

Communication breakdown

Keeping clients informed is not just a professional requirement, it also makes good business sense, says Andrew Goodall

Watching the watchdog

After a setback in its price-fixing case against supermarkets and a temporary victory in the bank charges, is the Office of Fair Trading really the people's champion, asks Jenny Howe

Update: professional negligence

Spike Charlwood reviews cases on the test of dishonesty in civil proceedings, loss of a chance claims, the first case on limitation after Sephton, and claims against barristers

An active regulator

The SRA's tough new approach to regulation is too intrusive, says David Mayhew

Knife through the stereotypes

ARound about the time I was still doing juvenile court crime – like delinquency, a practice one hopes to grow out of – the fashion was to blame all society's ills on single mothers. As far as the tabloids and government policy ( often indistinguishable, then as now) was concerned, their general fecklessness , indolence and irresponsibility was to blame for everything. Specifically, their pig headed refusal to have truck with the absent heroes who had fathered their children was the root cause of 'Britain's Breakdown'. It was always a surprise to go to court and meet the reality – worried, hard working, committed women trying to keep their families together against the odds. Not all of course – the odorously pissed mama, a stranger to education, employment or indeed soap, who swigged cans of loopy juice while letting rip to her strongly held views about immigration and shouting obscenities at her 11-year-old wasn't a particularly great advert for motherhood, or indeed our species. Her mantra was that Britain was no longer a place for the decent white working class, like her. After an afternoon of this I did mutter 'Well, one out of three ain't bad' but by then she was too drunk to hear it. But I remember her as a glorious exception to the norm – the majority were wilfully misrepresented.

A decade on from reform

The changes to the civil procedure rules following the Woolf report were implemented ten years ago, but have they delivered the intended fairer results at lower costs and speedier justice, asks David Greene

Beneficial ownership

What constitutes detriment for the purpose of supporting a common intention constructive trust, asks Professor Mark Pawlowski