Latest on the Trade Union BillAs the Trade Union Bill makes its way through the House of Lords, the Government has published its response to the consultation about more stringent ballot thresholds for workers in “important public services”. Under the new Bill, a union will only be able to call a strike where at least 50% of those members eligible to vote participate in the ballot and a majority of those participants vote in favour of strike action.  However in “important public services”, in addition to the requirement of a 50% plus turnout, at least 40% of eligible members must vote in…

National living wageOn 1 April the National Living Wage will become law.Employees aged 25 or over, who are not in the first year of an apprenticeship, will be legally entitled to be paid at least £7.20 per hour – an extra fifty pence per hour more than the National Minimum Wage. The Government is committed to increasing this every year, so by 2020 the rate will be more than £9 per hour. Anyone under the age of 25 will continue to be paid the National Minimum Wage.https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-living-wage-nlw/national-living-wage-nlwExclusivity in zero hours contracts New regulations came into force on 11 January 2016 which…

Recently the case of Joy Williams made the news headlines. The 69-year-old grandmother lived with dentist Norman Martin for 18 years after he split with his wife, Maureen. But Mr Martin never divorced, nor did he update his Will, so when he died of a heart attack four years ago, his half share of the £320,000 three-bedroom bungalow in Dorchester, Dorset, went to Mrs Martin – despite leaving her in 1994 to start living with Ms Williams.The couple owned their property as ‘tenants in common’, a form of ownership which does not allow one party to inherit from the other. So…

It seems that client generation websites are multiplying faster than a boat full of rabbit sailors enjoying a period of extended shore leave. Notwithstanding the significant doubt surrounding whether leporine society actually boasts a merchant navy, it does seem that these types of websites are launching with greater regularity. They all promise to attract pretty much the same thing: sensible clients with the ability to pay for legal services.The problem these sites are facing in persuading lawyers aboard in significant numbers, however, is that previous versions have been spectacularly unsuccessful. Unless the current models represent a significant departure from the…

Someone once said that being a salesman is either the easiest and best paid job ever or the hardest and worst paid job in the world. Whichever category you find yourself in depends, in part, on your customer. And if your customer is a lawyer, then you need to be prepared for regular periods of bread and dripping.Let’s face it, selling anything into the legal profession is not for beginners. It is a task which Sisyphus would have regarded as thankless. Solicitors are programmed to be sceptical and immune to the grand claims of sales people. Every day legal practices…

The gender pay gap. Three little words with very big meaning and although it’s not immediately obvious which is the most contentious, when you look at the allusion as a whole, it’s a sad and sorry affair that we are still talking about it in the 21st Century.And so, the entire corporate world is waiting, eagle-eyed, for all companies with more than 250 employees, whether private or third sector, to be required to publish the difference between what they pay their male employees and what they pay their female employees. Employment lawyers may be expecting a potential slew of equal…

It’s official! Britain has voted to leave the European Union!Whether they are cheering or crying into their cornflakes, employers across the country need to start thinking about the implications of Brexit for their business and their workforce.  So much of our employment law has originated from Europe so what will happen in practice once we are no longer part of the European Union? The UK is required to give two years’ notice of its intention to leave the EU so any changes to employment law will not be considered for some time.  However it is useful to look now at the implications…

On Thursday 23 June, the eight-day trial concerning the alleged copyright infringement by Led Zeppelin concluded as the jury ruled that the iconic guitar riff intro of the band’s classic track “Stairway to Heaven” was their own composition and not taken from the song “Taurus” by Spirit, released four years beforehand. Although it was acknowledged that both Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, lead singer and guitarist of Led Zeppelin respectively, had access to the lesser known song before writing Stairway, the jury failed to see enough similarities between the two compositions to justify the charge of plagiarism. The suit against…

The 1960’s US rock band Spirit is suing members of the seminal British rock band Led Zeppelin for copyright infringement of their most famous hit “Stairway to Heaven” and an injunction against the release of album Led Zeppelin IV which features the track.It is alleged that the opening instrumental of “Stairway to Heaven” was incorporated into the song after Led Zeppelin heard Spirit’s song “Taurus” whilst the bands toured together between 1968 and 1969. In its defence Led Zeppelin have argued that the composition in question is a “descending chromatic scale of pitches” so conventional that it does not warrant…

Over the past few years so much has happened to alter the shape of the legal industry – cloud-based technologies, mobile apps, advanced analytics, IBM Watson, Oratto – yet, despite this, too many law firms remain resistant or worse, oblivious, to the impact legal technologies are having on the provision and quality of legal services.Perhaps it is because of the resistance and naivety of some firms that it is only when you scratch the service that you begin to get a feel for just how much things are changing. In fact, they may even take reassurance from the fact that…