DEDICATED

This month I thought I would share a few tips for MS Word that will save you time and hopefully stop you from pulling your hair out on those days when you just can’t make Word do what you want it to.

Comparing documents in MS Word

Sometimes you may need to compare two documents and track any differences. This comes in handy when you are trying to see which version of a document was created first or even if you have two copies of a large document and you wish to see, without reading the whole thing, if it has been tampered with.

On the whole it is, although some peculiar situations come up sometimes, and I am going to recount three of them to you!

R v Collins [1972] 2 All ER 1105 

One summer’s evening, a Friday in 1972, a 19-year-old, blond, good-looking chap had been out on his own to a local pub in Colchester, Essex. Little did he know, as he downed several pints of beer, that before the night was out he would become the lead player in a case that subsequently went from the Essex Assizes, where he was convicted of burglary with intent to commit rape contrary to s.9 (1)(a) of the Theft Act 1968, to the Court of Appeal Criminal Division where his conviction was quashed (R v Collins [1972] 2 All ER 1105). The Assize Courts, by the way, were disbanded at the end of 1972 by The Courts Act 1971 and replaced by the Crown Court.

Legal aid is a way to offer legal advice and support to people who cannot afford to pay for it themselves. It has been one of the basic pillars of the welfare state since it came into being. But new changes that came into effect in early April in England and Wales have removed legal aid funding from various areas of civil law, including family disputes and social welfare benefits advice as well as housing and debt problems. The Government claims that resources are extremely tight and that spending on legal aid the way we have is no longer an option. According to official sources, the new cuts will save £350 million from a £2.1 billion budget.

In October 2012, David Cameron made a statement about the prison system and that prisons should be made to work for the offenders. He also said that punishment and rehabilitation should in fact take equal precedence in preventing crime. The Prime Minister said that the debate on punishment had become too ‘black or white’, and that the prison system should be one that has a positive and rehabilitative impact on an inmate’s life, rather than merely a punitive one. 

This month we will consider a recent Court of Appeal decision which should remind those practicing in Wills and Probate of the importance of following best practices when preparing wills for clients. 

The case, Hawes v Burgess [2013] EWCA Civ 74, involved a 2007 will which cut out the testatrix’s son, Peter, and left the estate equally to her two daughters, Libby and Julia. 

Consider the following background facts to the case:

1. The deceased, Daphne Burgess, died in 2009, aged 80, having suffered from failing health since 2006.

The experience of seeing one’s parents split up, however amicably, can be difficult for a child to cope with.  But divorces are not always amicable.  The fact is that many split-ups are bitter and frequently involve protracted legal battles, including child custody cases.  In the bitter battle between warring parents, children often end up becoming the prisoners of war.  Parents often use children as weapons in their personal fights with each other, and according to legal experts specialising in family and divorce law, this behaviour is escalating. 

If you have studied ILSPA’s Legal Secretaries Diploma course, you will already know that a leasehold estate is one of the two ways under the Law of Property Act 1925 that you can own land in the UK.  Leasehold is a form of ownership that allows you a temporary right to hold land or property.  The length of this temporary right is often measured in decades, usually 99 or 125 years. What you have not bought when you obtain a leasehold title is the land a property stands on.  The land is owned by a freeholder or landlord, who will charge a ground rent.