Monthly Archive for January, 2008

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Thanks Ed

By NL on 16/01/2008. 0 Comments

As Charon has picked up, Colin Samuels and Diane Levin, law bloggers and ‘sherpas’ to the ever so anonymous editor of Blawg Review have asked for recognition of the editor’s achievement in building and sustaining the review.

As someone who has been the recipient of the editor’s tender ministrations (and the bountiful assistance of the sherpas), I’m happy to give a hear hear to the praise to the Ed.

Also congratulations to Colin Samuels for getting the Blawg Review of 2007 award. Hey, I voted for him.… Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: .

Human Rights for customers

By NL on 15/01/2008. 0 Comments

Undertaken at the request of the DCA (as was), the MoJ has published the findings of its ‘Human Rights Insight Project’. The BBC did a story on it, and the publication can be found on the MoJ site here.

There are a number of things to cheer in the report, not least its finding that

“Vulnerable, frequent users are particularly exposed to service delivery that fails to respect their human rights”

But there are some depressing aspects. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, given that the Daily Mail is still considered to be a newspaper:

It is only when it comes to the current application of the Human Rights Act that negative views

… Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Hey, you asked…

By NL on 12/01/2008. 2 Comments

For some of us internet old timers, who were on usenet before the WWW existed and were hand coding websites in the mid 1990s, it is still a surprise how people treat search engines as something to put a fully fledged question into. January has been a bumper month for searches arriving at this site that involved what, when, who, how, why and where questions that had something to do with housing law, albeit all apparently coming from e.e. cummings.

In a karma appeasing reverse of my occasional sniping at strange search terms, I decided to be helpful. In order to avoid having to return as a cockroach yet … Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, Disrepair, Housing law - All, Possession, Tolerated trespasser and Unlawful eviction and harassment. Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

After wigs, cravats

By NL on 10/01/2008. 5 Comments

Cravat horrorAnd we thought the sound and fury over whether bench, bar and solicitor-advocates wear or don’t wear wigs was bad. From the land of more relaxed court-wear comes a debate over whether a cravat (or an Ascot, depending) is appropriate for an advocate or rather ‘borders on contemptuous’. Shockingly, bowties are apparently thoroughly respectful.

Thanks to WAC for the link.… Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Exodus Part 1 (of many)

By NL on 07/01/2008. 0 Comments

The Guardian reports on a survey by the Association of Lawyers for Children. The results are not surprising to anyone facing a legal aid future (although the survey was done before the LSC decision to terminate the unified contract).

One-third of individual solicitors and 40% of law firms planned to reduce their What Price Justicereliance on legal aid work. 17 solicitors had or were just about to give up family legal aid (what proportion was this?). One solicitor reported that a prospective client looking for an urgent domestic violence injunction had called 22 other solicitors without finding a taker. Anecdotally, this doesn’t surprise me. Some of our callers for housing have … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

LSC throws rattle out of pram

By NL on 04/01/2008. 0 Comments

Good heavens. In an announcement carefully made at 5 pm on 21 December 2007, the Legal Services Commission states that intends to terminate the unified contract. Yes, that civil legal aid unified contract that we mostly signed up to in March/April 2007 and that was to run the next few years.

Granted, the unilateral powers of amendment the LSC reserved to itself were found illegal by the Court of Appeal, but the LSC and Law Society were apparently in talks about revisions and the LSC seemed determined to steam ahead anyway.

In a remarkably bad tempered statement, the LSC blames the prospect of further legal action by the Law … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: .

Not the only housing blog in the village

By NL on 04/01/2008. 5 Comments

Oh frabjious day. After many months ploughing a lonely furrow as the internet`s finest but only housing law blog, I am delighted to welcome another into the world. William Flack of Flack & co, who both comments on and features in posts hereabouts, has begun his own blog. I will be reading with enthusiasm. But William, nobody else can add comments at the moment…

[Edit. No disrespect intended to Tessa at Landlord Law, but, as the title suggests,  she focuses on Landlord & Tenant rather than broader housing law issues.]… Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: .
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