2008

Knowing your contractual rights and how to enforce them

We are unlikely ever to have sufficient time to do all the things we want or need to do. Therefore, it’s vital to make the best use of the time we have available. And since time itself is not physically manageable, we have to learn to manage ourselves, our workloads, our priorities and our clutter. Here are top ten tips to help you do this:

Civil Litigation Procedure - Part 2

In our last article on Civil Litigation, we outlined some of the history of the current litigation rules and what should be considered before a legal claim is issued. In this article, we will consider some of the steps that a Defendant can take when responding to a claim.

Avoidance is the best policy

In the last two issues we have looked at preparing and writing a report. The third and final stage of report writing is to check your report. Make sure you are methodical when checking, no matter how much you feel you know what you have written: start at the top of page one, and keep going until the last line of the last page!

The nine Legal Secretaries pictured below were the first to pass the Legal Secretaries Diploma course run by advocates of the GTA University Centre in association with The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs. The GTA worked closely with members of the local industry to deliver the course, which started in September 2007 and was tutored by Gavin Ferguson, Allan Skirrow and Philip Nicol-Gent, also pictured.

The tour we conduct takes Students around an area of London known as ‘The Temple’, where many barristers’ chambers are located, and the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, which contains 86 courts and 3.5 miles of corridors and houses the High Court in London and the Appeal Courts, both Civil and Criminal.

Good English Matters!

Do you agree with this statement? Are you concerned, annoyed and fed up with the decline in standards in the use of our beautiful English language? If so, please read on.

The Queen’s English Society (QES) has been in existence for more than thirty-five years, but now more than ever it is important to work toward preserving the beauty and precision of the English language.

If you work in a MS Windows environment, sooner or later you will ask your IT person the question that he or she hears at least once a day: “Why is my PC so slow? It never used to be.”

Is it career suicide to ask for a pay rise in the current economic climate?

Imagine the scene – you’ve worked with the same company for a good few years and over the last two years you’ve had nothing by way of a pay increase, not even the cost of living. With margins being squeezed from all sides how do you ask for a pay rise? When it comes to asking for a pay rise, even the most confident people can suffer a crisis of confidence.

How did you become a tutor with the Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs?

I joined the firm Trowers & Hamlins in 1998 to assist a partner in setting up the Bahrain office. We started with two rented desks from Ernst & Young. This was my first time working with lawyers and it was a real eye-opener. I had been working for the management consulting arm of KPMG, so I was used to working on lengthy documents, but not so used to the exacting standards required in a law firm.

I was recently invited to attend a meeting to discuss training and employment opportunities with a private training charity called Citizen Trust. I was greeted there by a friendly and warm-hearted adviser named Jasmine, who told me about the services of Citizen Trust.

A brave new world and what it means for you

Tips for your Career Success

Civil Litigation Procedure - Part 1

The Rules of Civil Litigation

In the last issue we looked at preparing to write a report. If you have been following all the tips in that issue, you are now ready to write your report! To write well, use plain English and adopt the ABC's of writing: be accurate, be brief and be clear. There is no point investing time and effort in your report only to have your readers lay it aside or ignore it because they find it full of jargon, difficult to read or badly laid out. So here are top ten tips for writing a report:

The phone is constantly engaged. The taxi ignores you. Your train is late. Why do minor hassles like these have the potential to make us uptight? Maybe it's because we're tightly wound already and can't find the pressure relief valve. We all live and work in a pressured world - pressure over money, commuting, technology, looking good, eating well.

Legal Secretaries help with the smooth running of law firms and can work in barristers’ chambers, local authorities, law courts and with the police. They hold a wealth of professional skills and overall they must be excellent secretaries with an understanding of law and legal procedures, computer literate, have good communication and organisational skills, an eye for detail and professional acumen.

DNA Proves a Hanged Man Was Innocent

‘It is one of the most notorious cases in British legal history, the story of an apparently mild-mannered doctor who poisoned and dismembered his showgirl wife, then fled across the Atlantic with his young lover – only to be caught after a sharp-eyed captain recognized him from the newspaper,’ writes Martin Hodgson in The Guardian of 17th October 2007.

Hodgson tells the story thus:

A Round Up of Recent Developments

With a new Employment Bill working it way through Parliament and expected to come into force in April 2009 we have focused on a few of the Bills main provisions. There have also been a number of recent developments in relation to protection from harassment at work.

The Employment Law Bill

Everyone has to write a report at some stage in their career. A well written report can further your career, since people see not only the content and well reasoned arguments or recommendations, but also the confidence and clarity with which it is written.