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Kimberley, Cape Town Opera, Football... News Update
Kimberley Spikings
Kimberley is a new member of Underwoods Solicitors. She is a solicitor specializing in Civil Litigation matters including, but certainly not limited to, debt recovery, contractual disputes, and landlord and tenant matters. If you require assistance and advice with any dispute, big or small, then please contact her at kimberley.spikings@lawabroad.co.uk or telephone 01442 430900 to arrange an appointment.
Opera
Underwoods Solicitors are organizing, on behalf of the Lord’s Taverners Cricket Charity for disabled children, and Cape Town Opera, a concert at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford at 8pm on Monday 11 June 2012 with all proceeds being split equally between the Lord’s Taverners and Cape Town Opera. Underwoods Solicitors are paying for the hire of the theatre. Tickets are available at £50, £30, £20, and £10. Please contact Leah Waller at leah.waller@lawabroad.co.uk for further details. For the philanthropic amongst you there are sponsorship opportunities – for example for £75 you can sponsor 10 seats so that children/ students can go for free.
Football
Through Club Wembley we have access to ordinary tickets for all of England’s games at Euro 2012 this summer. For further details please contact Kerry Underwood at kerry.underwood@lawabroad.co.uk.
Kerry's Blog 12th August 2011 - http://kerryunderwood.wordpress.com
GENOCIDAL MONSTER GETS LEGAL AID
One week and we already have MORE READERS THAN THE NEWS OF THE WORLD!
Everyday, every lawyer, law student etc., especially at parties, is asked:
“How can you represent someone that you know is guilty?”
neatly encapsulating the fact that:
- All people are guilty of everything;
- All lawyers are bent;
- Only people who do not need representing should be represented.
Lawyers’ responses include:
1. Slowly and carefully explaining the presumption of innocence, the rule of law and the cab-rank rule, that is that we take the next case that comes along.
2. Saying “It could be your son or daughter”.
3. Asking how the questioner can work for X corporation which [uses child labour] [causes global meltdown] [supplies arms to not very nice governments] [used to advertise in the News of the World].
4. Pouring yet another drink.
So here is the news as non-lawyers would like it.
“Mr Johnny Foreigner, 32, genocidal drug-dealing war-lording phone-hacking slave-trafficking fundamentalist mercenary of Aspidistra Crescent, represented by Petronella Prod-Up, 14, intern at LSC firm Bustall and Co (deceased), importers of Vietnamese cross-country skiing aids, was found guilty at Guantanamo Bay Magistrates Court, Surrey, by Coronation Street star Judge Tim Tom Trotter, 16, currently starring in “I’m a Celebrity Big Brother Apprentice – get me out of here”.
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season
(T S Eliot: Gerontion)
Kerry's Blog 5th August 2011 - http://kerryunderwood.wordpress.com
Bankrupt Thai Golf firm represents suspects
The Legal Services Commission (LSC), which runs Legal Aid, chose Bostalls, an unregulated commercial body not owned by lawyers, to provide telephone advice to suspects being held in police stations, something previously reserved to solicitors.
Bostalls has gone bust, owing unpaid taxes.
The Law Society at the time criticized the decision to allow such an unregulated body to deliver legal services, rightly describing it as an Alternative Business Structure by the back door.
Andy Scripture, Managing Director, of Bostalls Bust said:
“We were looking to do other things and distribute golfing aids from Thailand in the UK but the articles of association for Bostalls limited it to the provision of legal services”.
Lesson learnt? Not a bit of it! The LSC has transferred the contract for the Criminal Defence Service (Direct) Scheme to Shaftesbury, a new company set up by ……Mr Scripture!
Asked if such a contract should be given to a company, which in another guise had been wound-up for non-payment of taxes, an LSC spokesman said:
“The LSC is satisfied public monies are being spent appropriately”.
Really? So that will be just the two of you – you and Mr Scripture – who think that.
Kafka where are you?
Judicial enquiry in to the Legal Services Commission where are you?
National press where are you?
Visit http://kerryunderwood.wordpress.com to see my latest post!
Kerry's Blog Goes Live 4th August 2011 - http://kerryunderwood.wordpress.com
Welcome to my first blog aged 55 and a quarter
Shakespeare wrote:
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” (Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4).
As this play is as readable as a commercial lease or European Court of Justice judgment I am surprised anyone ever made it to Part 2.
Soon you may all find out if the Bored of Stratford was right as from 6 October the Government aims to kill the legal profession by allowing non-lawyers to practise law.
This has all-party support – it was the Labour Government that introduced the Legal Services Act 2007 and it is being implemented by a Conservative-Liberal coalition.
I suppose this will ease unemployment among the jobless phone-hackers and police bunga bungas but hey, maybe it is time for a bit MORE regulation of lawyers, police, politicians and the press, not less.
So, and you heard it here first, Law Abroad plc and Underwoods Solicitors are remaining just that – solicitors. No Alternative Business Structure for us. After all the legal profession, and its offspring the judiciary, are about the only parts of the British Constitution not subsumed in scandal.
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
(T S Eliot: The Hollow Men)
Employment lawyers required 22nd June 2011
Two employment lawyers required. Between them the roles will cover claimant and respondent work, contentious and non-contentious work and advocacy but experience of all of those areas is not essential.
Would suit solicitor or legal executive.
Apply with CV to Kerry Underwood:
kerry.underwood@lawabroad.co.uk
Africa Rising 9 June 2011
Robert Males, Chief Executive of Law Abroad Plc took part in a meeting with the UK’s Minister for Africa, Henry Bellingham MP and the South African Minister of Trade and Industry, Elizabeth Thabethe on 8 June 2011.
The carrying out of English legal work in South Africa has been pioneered by Law Abroad and Underwood Solicitors.
The South African Government is arranging a trade mission for lawyers to visit South Africa to look at opportunities for the offshoring of legal work.
Contact Robert Males at robertmales@lawabroad.co.uk if you are interested in joining the mission.
Meanwhile, Chairman Kerry Underwood has been invited by the UK Department of Trade and Industry to take part in trade missions to Algeria and Tunisia.
First Time Buyer Information
If you’re a first time buyer make your New Year’s resolution to buy your own property this year – the first time buyer’s stamp duty exemption ends on 24 March 2012. A valid first time buyer who purchases a property up to the value of £250,000 will pay no stamp duty – meaning a potential £2,500 saving!
Call Adam Shute to discuss buying your first property today – 01442 430900
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