THE high profile decision by the Court of Appeal in the libel case concerning the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) and the scientist Simon Singh has been hailed as a victory by libel reform groups.

There has been a long running and at times polemic debate between interest groups on both sides on the scope of our current libel laws. An increasingly vocal number of journalists, free speech groups and media publishers have campaigned for significant reform arguing the law unduly protects high profile celebrities and businesses at the expense of freedom of expression.

WE TALK about what makes a great person. This got me thinking. Do they say that about lawyers?

I would like to think, so but in reality we do tend to get a bad press.

However, if you ask a random selection of members of the public who have had dealings with lawyers they will almost certainly give a very different story. Surveys have shown that the public regard their solicitor to be trustworthy reliable honest and efficient.

Many solicitors are in fact doing far more than serving their clients. Not only by serving as councillors, being school governors and being members of many of the wonderful service organisations in the world including Rotary and The lions. In my club alone, the Rotary Club of Birkenhead, six of our members are lawyers.

IT WOULD seem that we are hearing on a daily basis worrying information about the standard of our hospital care.

Only recently did we read about the Health Chief's enquiry into the trauma surgeon, Toby Branfoot, who worked at Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust as a consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon.

Bosses at Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust have ordered a review of treatment by the cdonsultant trauma surgeon and the Trust is already facing legal action from one of his patients who suffered catastrophic complications and had his lower left leg amputated six months after he underwent major reconstruction surgery.

It's been a LONG time since my last blog.

Rather than apologise, I should explain this: if the purpose of this blog is to bring to life (by use of "amusing" anecdotes and other "witty" occurrences) the daily trials and tribulations of a typical North West family lawyer then a more regular update would result in all family lawyers being shot by the boring police.

The daily grind of wake up/go to work/come home/do more work may be fascinating to my mother (who requires her own twice daily updates) but you should try wringing 250 words out of it.

IT IS fair to say that referral fees have become a way of life to most lawyers over last few years.

It was once unthinkable that a solicitor would pay somebody to refer an accident claim or a house-purchase.

For most firms it is now an accepted business expense. But is it time to reconsider?

Seconds out, Round 1 - Tesco Law v Brand Solicitor

I went to the trusty top right hand corner of my browser today and typed in the words "Tesco Law". I was sure there would be a Wiki article or perhaps a line from Tesco.

Nope on both counts.

There is an article from back in 2004 in 'The Independent' that says,

"Lord Falconer's notion of cheap and accessible legal advice, dubbed by the constitutional affairs secretary 'Tesco law', came a step closer when Britain's biggest supermarket chain obliged by launching its own online legal service."

AROUND 50% of office workers use Facebook, Twitter or other social networking sites for personal use during the working day, wasting an average of 40 minutes a week per employee and costing the economy around £1.38billion a year.

One marketing company dismissed one of its employees after she said her job was "boring" on Facebook, because it believed it her comment displayed disrespect and dissatisfaction that undermined her relationship with the company. Virgin Atlantic also sacked 13 crew for describing passengers as "chavs".

Now employers are increasingly monitoring staff internet and email use in the workplace and a significant number have banned access to social networking sites during office hours.

After this story in today's LDP Legal in the Daily Post, the Ministry of Justice has abandoned plans for Best Value Tendering for legal aid.

It follows threats by the Law Society to start judicial review proceedings against the Government to try to force it to back down.

A Law Society statement reads: "The Law Society welcomes the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) decision inviting the Legal Services Commission (LSC) not to proceed with its planned pilots for Best Value Tendering (BVT).

BACK to the Good Old Days!

1999 was going to be the big bang in civil procedure. No more delays, court controls and simple procedures with costs being least of our problems as we grappled with the new way of doing things.

For those new to Civil law the National Law Society had quite a lot to say about the proposed changes. There was a great deal of concern that too many changes were taking place to areas of practise which appeared to most to be working very well!

I READ last week in the Daily Post that scores of Liverpool women are dying needlessly from breast cancer every year because their condition is diagnosed too late.

The city was found to have one of the worst survival rates anywhere in England, with almost 7% of women dead within one year of being told they have the condition.

Health experts believe the high death rate is explained by a failure to diagnose the cancer early enough.