Along with being half of one of the UK’s best-loved comic partnerships, Ernie Wise merits a place in history for his part in a telecommunications breakthrough.On New Year’s Day 1985, he made the country’s first ever mobile phone call, heralding mass adoption of devices which have become considerably smaller, more powerful and more relied-upon in the three decades since. It is perhaps slightly ironic, though, that even as smartphones have become able to fulfil a much broader range of functions and liberated us from the prospect of having to remain tethered to a landline, calls for constraints on their use…

Drafting a Will often presents many complexities for the testator to consider. It’s a necessary and worthwhile endeavour for most people because without a Will the estate will be subjected to the rules of intestacy and the deceased will not have any say in how their wealth and assets are distributedOne of the key decisions for the testator to make is who to assign as executor. The role of the executor carries a lot of responsibility and is not something to just be dished out at random. Simply put, an executor is a person who will carry out the testator’s…

Divorce is an emotionally turbulent time for everyone involved. If the separating couple have children, then, naturally, they will remain the main priority when making arrangements, but there are so many other issues to be sorted out. And one of the main questions will be what will happen to the family home.Deciding what will happen to a couple’s property can be a major stumbling block in a separation because as well as almost certainly being the major financial asset in the relationship, it may also hold many emotional connotations – much more than mere bricks and mortar. Depending on what…

 In March 2015, the Government launched the next step in their strategy to make the Court Service largely self-funding by increasing Court Fees for civil claims to recover money. How much are Court Fees for civil claims?The level of increase for civil claims was far above inflation, with some fees increasing by over 600%. For example, the cost to bring a claim of £200,000 increased from £1,315 to £10,000.The wisdom of increasing these costs by such a large amount has been questioned, especially since in most cases the claim will be settled before trial.This means that for a £200,000 claim,…

Post Brangelina split, there appears to be a lot of media coverage surrounding the parties decision to divorce.How different is the process for a celeb than for a ordinary person? It always seems that celebs manage to obtain a “fast-track” divorce often cited as being completed not long after the news of a split. Divorce proceedings in the UK take a minimum of 6 months to complete but can take longer depending on factors relating to how well parties co-operates as well as other issues.There is unfortunately no way of fast tracking a divorce, it will be the same procedure…

A number of companies have announced plans to cut back on staff benefits to cope with the cost of the new national living wage.But is this legal? Could there be alternative ways to manage the hike in staff salaries? When the new regulations were announced in 2015, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted that the wage rise to £7.20 per hour for those aged 25 and over, which is due to rise to £9 by 2020, would lead to the loss of 60,000 jobs and four million fewer working hours per week.Waitrose and Caffè Nero are among the high-street names…

At one time only musicians looked to get a ‘gig’. The rest of us found ‘proper jobs’ that paid a fixed monthly salary with holidays and let us plan for the future with some legal rights.Today more of us have left this traditional job model to try to make a living working for ourselves on one-off ‘gigs’ –as temporary workers, independent contractors or people selling their skills through websites. The ‘gig economy’ has firmly entered employment vocabulary, becoming a catch-all term for anything from Uber taxi drivers and Airbnb hosts to freelance professionals. It is a relatively small but growing…

Employees and businesses  have been alerted to the underpayment of wages worth thousands of pounds in damages following a major Employment Tribunal ruling involving supermarket giant Asda.Whilst these claims are nothing new (equal pay between men and women has been law since the Equal Pay Act 1970) the majority of the 1,300 or so claims submitted each month have been against public sector employers. This is by far the biggest equal pay case in the private sector and is already having far-reaching implications with 400 Sainsbury’s workers bringing similar claims.The Tribunal ruled that Asda may have to adjust the pay…

Employees in both the public and private sector who have customer-facing roles are will be expected to be able to speak fluent English to customers. However, how employers assess fluency can be controversial.The government is planning to bring into force Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016, which requires all public sector workers in customer-facing roles to speak fluent English. The stated intention is to increase standards in order to meet “the public’s reasonable expectation to be able to speak English when accessing public services”. Earlier this month, the High Court rejected an attempt by a private sector company, the…

In the business world, the law of commerce underpins all commercial dealings. Commerce lies at the heart of a democratic society and having effective legal recourse when things don’t go to plan is essential. However, the established model for facilitating this needs to change and law firms must bear the brunt.There’s currently a very real dichotomy between supply and demand. Availability, cost, and accessibility are the three key watchwords and the Legal Services Consumer Panel has taken the unprecedented step of recommending regulatory intervention after figures showed that just 17% of law firms are being transparent about their fees by…