March 2008 Archives

Hey how’s it going?

It’s been a while since my last blog because I haven’t had a minute to myself. My first seat is now over and the first six months of my training contract spent in employment has now finished. I loved every minute of my time in Employment, from really enjoyed working with all the people to the varied workload.

A NORTH West collaborative lawyer believes that the recent high profile divorce of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills has further highlighted the need for an alternative to the traditional approach.

JAMES Murray Solicitors has strengthened its 'no win no fee' department with the appointment of a new personal injury specialist.

Recent headlines reporting the sale of online networking site Bebo for around £290M show just how profitable a good idea can be. Inventing and entrepreneurialism in general has become ingrained in popular culture in recent years thanks largely to TV shows such as Dragons Den. The resurgence in entrepreneurialism is particularly evident in Liverpool thanks to the growth of organisations providing support and advice to budding entrepreneurs and inventors.

However, the fact remains that the vast majority of ideas never get off the drawing board. There are two hurdles facing an entrepreneur/inventor, and both can only be overcome by securing funding, and usually a lot of it. The first problem is getting a good idea on paper off the drawing board to produce a working prototype. The second is to obtain legal protection for the idea whether that be a patent or registered design right. Neither come cheap.

WHILE advising Stobart Group, the Warrington-based transport and logistics provider, on a hat trick of £85m transactions last week, Halliwells corporate partners Jonathan Brown and Craig Scott were forced to leave negotiations for a short while to collect an award for their role in helping Eddie Stobert onto the stock Mmarket in a range of transactions last year.

WEIGHTMANS has celebrated the corporat social responsibility efforts of its staff over the last 12 months and announced its ambitions for 2008.

TWO of Liverpool’s leading property players have joined forces to launch Liverpool Commercial. Gregory Abrams Davidson solicitors and Venmore Commercial launched the forum earlier this month to provide a series of free seminars on commercial property, the buy-to-let market and landlord/ tenant issues.

Kathy Perrin in our Liverpool office has enjoyed an experience few lawyers ever do - a case heard in the House of Lords. And she only qualified two years ago. The case of Young vs Catholic Care (the latter our clients) is actually the second we have had in the Lords in a short space of time.

Most cases stop at the Court of Appeal and it's rare for them to be given leave to appeal to the Lords. For any litigation lawyer it is a dream come true. She did a great job and was even quoted in The Times on the implications of the law around compensation for child abuse victims. What with the grim news emerging from Jersey, this will be an area likely to stay high profile.

LIVERPOOL’S top judge has defended his colleagues against criticism from Merseyside’s police chief that they are failing to deter gun crime.

The recorder of Liverpool, Judge Henry Globe QC added the chief constable’s claims that judges were ignoring sentencing guidelines were “potentially damaging� for Liverpool crown court.

A LIVERPOOL barrister has published his first book.

Family law specialist Jonathan Butler of India Buildings Chambers is the author of the new Community Care Law and Local Authority Handbook, out this month.