Groundbreaking playwright Lanford Wilson has died at the age of 73. Wilson, considered one of the most influential American playwrights of the late 20th century, was known for his gritty, realistic dialogue and his championing of those pushed to the margins of society, the New York Times notes. He won…
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Rick Kordowski remains unapologetic over the website he set up as the result of his treatment by lawyers which he claims cost him £750,000 “I’ve no particular problems with the legal industry as a whole. One of my best friends is a solicitor.” Such magnanimity might dangerously raise the blood pressure of lawyers when they realise the view expressed is from Rick Kordowski, owner of solicitorsfromhell.com , scourge of all dodgy lawyers and perfectly decent ones that have the misfortune of falling into his notoriously non-discriminating net. Mr Justice Lloyd Jones last month lambasted the hugely controversial website – which seeks to name and shame “corrupt, negligent, dishonest, crooked, fraudulent lawyers” – for comments about a young solicitor that were, he said, “baseless, abusive, malicious and an unwarranted slur on the competency and probity of a young lawyer”. The lawyer in question was awarded £10,000 in damages. The judge was particularly vexed by the site’s £299 “administration charge” that lawyers have pay to get their names taken off the website. It’s not hard to understand why Kordowski has become the law’s bête noire. The Law Society’s chief executive, Desmond Hudson, says that “fair criticism” is “entirely valid” and that the need for clients to be able to give feedback is “extremely important”. “However from all we have seen, what this website is about is simply a blanket characterisation of all legal professionals as corrupt, and providing a vehicle for pursuing personal grudges and vendettas.” I spoke to Kordowski last week. Was there something uniquely dreadful about lawyers to target them in this way, I asked. “Probably not. The same criticisms could probably be made about accountants, bankers, builders …” His motivation for setting up the site, which has been running for five years, was his treatment at the hands of lawyers. The Essex-based self-employed graphic designer claims to have lost £750,000 after being negligently advised on a planning dispute. He was vague about the details of the case (“it’s complicated”). “It devastated me. I lost everything … house, job, money, the whole shooting match.” He claims to have received £500 compensation through the Law Society’s complaints handling process as a result of professional negligence. What would he say to the many lawyers appalled, perhaps devastated, by unfounded criticism placed on his site? “Go back to your client, or whoever complained about you, and sort out your differences,” he replied. Why doesn’t he vet claims? Kordowski said that he once did try checking with firms before publishing. “Everyone denied the allegations and so I don’t do it any more.” He told me that now people have to set up a PayPal account before they list a complaint. “So I have the pukka details. If it reads OK, and they’re happy with my terms and conditions, I generally publish.” When I suggested to Kordowski, who has a number of legal actions from aggrieved lawyers against him, that he be must either be “brave or suicidal” to bait lawyers, he replied: “Not really, I have nothing to lose in terms of cash or assets.” And what about that “admin charge”? No one ever pays it, he insists. “It’s a publicity stunt. I was on the front page of the Law Society’s Gazette a few months ago … so it does work!” The site now has a solicitorsfromheaven service where web users can find “good, decent, fighting, professional, passionate lawyers”. There are some 200 firms listed including 10 who, Kordowski tells me, have paid £299 for a lifetime listing (“that includes a ban from hell”) supported by client testimonial. “It’s a website for the people. There are a lot of solicitor directories out – normally, the firms write their own testimonials. The difference with my site – both heaven and hell – it’s purely driven by the public, good or bad.” That is why the solicitorfromhell phenomenon – Kordowski reckons it gets 2,500 hits a day – can’t be dismissed, certainly not in the context of the ongoing deregulation of legal services. It meets a demand. “While he may have run his site a tad carelessly, the fact that he got 5,000 submissions from punters suggests there is something in it,” blogged legal academic John Flood. The Legal Services Act 2007 was not introduced as a result of an evangelical belief in the transformative powers of competition. It was as much to do with the profession’s woeful track record on complaints that kick-started the whole Clementi business . As we head towards 6 October which will (theoretically) unleash those powers of competition under the LSA by allowing non-law businesses (the Co-Op, Halifax, Which? et al) to move further into legal services, the big question is how on earth do consumers choose between the “heaven” and “hell” of legal services? At the moment they don’t, according to a recent report from the Legal Services Board (Quality in Legal Services, Legal Services Consumer Panel), which confirmed that “quality” was “not strongly influencing consumers”. That was “bad for competition” as quality firms couldn’t differentiate themselves from poorer rivals. “We put ourselves in their hands and, because they are qualified and they are professionals, we just hope and presume that they going to give us the right information and do the job for us,” said one interviewee. It’s hardly the view of the empowered consumer. The legal services market is already seeing a wave of comparethemarket.com-style sites anticipating the newly competitive environment. Welcome innovations, I reckon, although they seem price-driven. What the market needs is Tripadvisor-style sites (plus online sources of reliable information signposting them towards trusted sources of help) so that people can make an informed decision. There’s not much point in competition if you can’t make a choice. Expect more. A footnote: when I spoke to Kordowski he mentioned that there were lawyers, even judges, who believed his site had “a purpose in society”? Who, I asked. This led me to talk to Mark Manley, a defamation lawyer at the Liverpool Brabners Chaffe Street Solicitors. It turns out Manley himself (a deputy district judge) was listed on solicitorsfromhell. Not by his own client but by the other side’s. Clearly it’s not the responsibility of a lawyer to keep the opposition happy (it’s arguably the sign of a good one that they don’t). Manley contacted Kordowski and threatened to sue unless his details were removed. He got the usual response (an invitation to pay the £299 admin fee). Manley wasn’t having it. He insisted he would take action without delay “whatever the financial consequences for you”. Kordowski, after asking for confirmation that he didn’t act for the complainant, agreed. Manley was then astonished to get another email from Kordowski asking for his help in his capacity as a defamation lawyer. “You have to admire the opportunism,” Manley tells me. The solicitor, despite having to force him to take down the comments, was prepared to offer generic advice to avoid future problems. Anyhow, what does Manley, a victim of the site, make of it? “It is a shame that some basic safeguards don’t operate because the intention – a consumer-based website to enable members of the public to make legitimate statements about service – is good. Unfortunately, currently there appears no control to prevent somebody making indiscriminate unjustified and/or false allegations against a solicitor – whether they had a service from them or not.” Jon Robins is a freelance journalist and director of the research company Jures . It is due to publish a collection of essays (with the Advice Services Alliance) on public legal education next month. Solicitors Consumer affairs Alternative Business Structures Jon Robins guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Three leading French chess players have been suspended in a cheating scandal that has rocked the usually sedate world of international chess. The French chess federation accuses the trio of using a complex text message-based system to cheat at the Chess Olympiad in Siberia last fall, reports the BBC . One…
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Oscar Pistorius, ticketing guides and Visa’s new Olympics ad 490 days to go As promised , here is this week’s selection of the best London 2012 Olympics content on the web (please add links below the line or send via email or Twitter . 1. Top 10 Olympic travel tips from Diamon Geezer . He also has a pretty good ticket guide (Via Owen Gibson ) 2. There’s an (unofficial) app for that . 3. Visa has a London 2012 ad featuring plenty of Olympic stars. Eat your heart out Mastercard. Oliver Holt in the Mirror had this to say about it. (Via Penny Woods ) 4. Worried about staying in London during the Games? Matt Beard of the London Evening Standard reports: “Top hotel chains in crisis talks with 2012 Olympics organisers over ‘rip-off’ re-sale packages.” 5. Have you looked at the terms and conditions of Olympic Tickets ? Nick Pearce did and here’s what he found . 6. Oscar Pistorius’ dream of running in theOlympic Games at London 2012 moved a step closer when the South African set a new personal best, just 0.06 seconds short of the ‘A’ standard needed for automatic Olympic qualification, reports the BBC . 7. Want to know more about the BOA v Locog row? This piece by Alan Hubbard uses boxing metaphors to explain. (Via Owen Gibson again) 8. The mountain-biking arena is ready . 9. Should handball be an Olympic sport? There was a brief but entertaining below the line debate on our Watching The Games series . 10. For 2012 refuseniks, here’s an apposite cartoon from the Daily Telegraph’s Matt . (Via Chei Amlani ) Please share your thoughts or more links below the line or send via email or Twitter . Olympic Games 2012 Olympics 2012: Handball Steve Busfield guardian.co.uk
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High hopes for green motoring as UK’s first mass-produced electric vehicle hits dealerships • Testdriving the Nissan Leaf Their sometimes clunky designs, short range between recharges and super-car price tags have put many drivers off buying an electric car. But that could soon change with the launch of the UK’s first mass-produced electric vehicle. The Nissan Leaf, an all-electric family car with the performance of a Ford Focus but a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions, is delivered to UK dealerships today. More than 600 fans of greener driving have been waiting since last September to get their hands on the Leaf, one of only a handful of electric vehicles available in the UK. Mark Goodier, the Smooth Radio DJ, is one of the first. “The great thing about electric cars is that the fuel distribution is already in place,” he said. “We all have mains electricity at home. We have it at work and councils are already working on how to install thousands of charging points at the roadside. You can see why electric vehicles make such sense, particularly in towns and cities.” At £30,990, the Leaf is at the expensive end of the family car budget, but drivers can claim a £5,000 government grant towards the cost . They are also exempt from road tax and congestion charges, and if it is used as a company car, it is not taxed as a benefit-in-kind and the employer pays no national insurance contributions on it. A full charge will last for about 110 miles, Nissan calculates, and cost about £2 in electricity. That compares with about £12 for 110 miles for a petrol-driven car of a similar size. Even with George Osborne’s budget give-away to “Ford Focus families”, in the form of a 1p cut to fuel duty announced on Wednesday , switching to an electric car is likely to save the average driver more than £1,500 a year. Ministers are hoping that the wider availability of electric cars will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport, which will be essential to meeting climate change targets. They also hope to spark investment in a new manufacturing industry. While the Leafs being driven out of dealerships this week were built in Japan, from 2013 they will be built at the Nissan plant in Sunderland . Other electric cars available in the UK include the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, the Smart Fortwo electric drive, the Peugeot iOn and Citroen C-Zero, but some are limited to leasing deals at present. More are scheduled to follow, including the Chevrolet Volt and Tata Vista. But the electric “revolution” in driving has got off to a slow start. Only 55 electric cars were sold in the UK in 2009, though that was before the government’s new grants took effect. The government’s climate advisers, the Committee on Climate Change , says the country needs 1.7m of them on the roads by 2020 to help meet the country’s tough carbon targets. This year is not likely to prove a breakthrough, despite the new cars reaching garages, according to Andrew Close, European manager for powertrain forecasts at IHS Global Insight. “It might be the first year people notice electric cars driving around – normal people rather than G-Wiz owners,” he said. “But 2011 will not see any breakthrough in volume [of cars on the road], though it will be a considerable jump from before. 2011 is way too early, £5,000 or not – the vehicles are expensive, constrained in supply and there are still too many good [conventional car] alternatives.” Fans of greener cars are happy with their expanded choice, though. Richard Todd, a silicon chip designer from St Albans, used to drive a Toyota Prius, a hybrid half-electric and half-petrol car. “As an engineer I have always wanted an electric car – I’ve just had to wait for the battery technology to arrive,” he said. “Hybrids are good but the driving experience of an all-electric vehicle is way beyond this.” A comprehensive charging network is currently under development in the UK, and Nissan’s network of EV dealers – currently 26 sites nationwide – will be equipped with a quick charger, which will charge the battery from zero to 80% capacity in under 30 minutes. Across the UK there are programmes under way to install around 9,000 charge points by 2013. Electric, hybrid and low-emission cars Carbon emissions Travel and transport Ethical and green living Motoring Fiona Harvey Adam Vaughan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Japanese officials fear that one of the reactor cores of the Fukushima nuclear facility may have been breached, raising the specter of significant environmental damage. “It is possible that somewhere at the reactor may have been damaged,” said a spokesman for the nation’s nuclear safety agency. Officials are hopeful the…
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Judge tells Delroy Grant his crimes are ‘in a league of their own’ and says he should face possibility he may die in prison The serial sex attacker Delroy Grant has been sentenced to life in prison for the 17 years of terror in which he attacked at least 203 elderly people in their homes. The “night stalker” will serve at least 27 years and was warned by the judge that he could die in prison. Grant, 53, who was convicted at Woolwich crown court, London, on Thursday of 29 charges relating to burglaries, attempted burglaries, rapes and indecent assaults against 18 elderly people between October 1992 and November 2009, was told by Judge Peter Rook: “Your offending is in a league of its own.” The Metropolitan police force has apologised for blunders which led to 146 attacks being committed after he should have been arrested . The judge told Grant, a former minicab driver, he was a “very dangerous man capable of committing heinous crimes and causing incalculable harm”. “You targeted elderly victims living alone. Your actions blighted the remaining precious years of their lives. Their homes, where many of them had lived for years, should have been their safest refuge where they could have expected to live their lives undisturbed and at peace. “You chose to invade their homes when they were in their beds at night. It’s hard to imagine the extreme fear that the feel of your gloved hand and the sight of your masked figure looming above them must have been felt by your victims in their beds.” The court also heard statements on Friday from Grant’s victims and their families about the impact of his crimes. One 85-year-old woman, referred to as Miss J for legal reasons, said she still continued to suffer from her ordeal nearly nine years ago. She was 77 when Grant burgled and indecently assaulted her at her bungalow in Shirley, Croydon, in October 2002. In a statement from 2003, she said: “I have found that time is not a great healer. I don’t think it’s got any easier over the last year. I certainly haven’t got back my peace of mind. Nobody can guarantee it won’t happen again.” Asked by the judge if her experiences at Grant’s hands still affected her, Miss J replied: “If I go out I like to be home before dark. I do a lot of locking and bolting, and taking precautions … It changed my life.” The judge paid tribute to Miss J’s “courageous” testimony and quoted from the son of another of Grant’s victims, who said: “It has ruined the winter years of my mother’s life, and she has to live with this for the rest of her life.” Grant received four life sentences for three rapes and one attempted rape of elderly women. He was also given concurrent eight-year sentences for seven indecent assaults, and concurrent six-year sentences for 18 burglaries and attempted burglaries. Courtenay Griffiths QC, defending, offered no mitigation for Grant other than to point out that his age meant he would probably spend the rest of his life in jail. The judge noted that in all but one case Grant targeted elderly people living alone, suggesting that his attacks involved considerable planning. He said: “Your offending spans a period of 17 years. Five London boroughs were affected by your offending. During that period your activities must have terrified a whole community, as your counsel accepted. “Thousands of people in south London have been living in fear that they might be your next victim.” Crime James Meikle guardian.co.uk
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Decision likely before foreign ministers from countries involved in anti-Gaddafi campaign gather for crucial conference in London Nato’s 28 countries are to decide within days whether to assume overall control of the military campaign against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, thus allowing the US to step back. France and Turkey, at loggerheads over whether authority for the campaign should be vested in Nato, agreed on Friday that the alliance should take control in what was a climbdown by Paris. The US and UK also agreed. Arguments over who should supplant a reluctant America in charge of the air campaign against Gaddafi have raged since the operations were launched last weekend, opening up major transatlantic divisions and splits among the Europeans. Any deal has to be rubberstamped by all 28 countries. Late on Thursday, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato secretary-general, announced that the alliance would assume control of the UN-mandated no-fly zone but that the campaign of air strikes on ground targets would remain outside Nato authority and be run by the “coalition of the willing” taking part. The United Arab Emirates has said the Gulf federation would send 12 aircraft – six F16s and six Mirages – to help patrol the no-fly zone, joining Qatar as the only members of the 22-member Arab League to publicly commit forces to the military operation. Overnight air strikes were launched on Gaddafi forces in and around Ajdabiya according to France’s chief of defence staff, Admiral Edouard Guillaud. A plane destroyed an artillery battery and French forces also destroyed a military base, a munitions depot and maintenance facilities in Libya’s interior. Defence secretary Liam Fox said British Tornado GR4 aircraft had launched several guided missiles at Libyan armoured vehicles: “The Tornado aircraft launched a number of guided Brimstone missiles at Libyan armoured vehicles which were threatening the civilian population of Ajdabiya.” He added: “Brimstone is a high precision, low collateral damage weapon optimised against demanding and mobile targets.” The African Union, in a rare apparent criticism of Gaddafi, has also called for a transition period for Libya during which democratic elections could be held. “The AU action is moving forward in a resolute political process aiming at facilitating dialogue between the Libyan parties on reforms to be launched to eliminate the root causes of the conflict … that should end with the election of democratic institutions,” the union’s commission chairman, Jean Ping, said in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Oana Lungescu, the Nato spokeswoman, said on Friday morning that the 28 ambassadors in Nato’s policymaking North Atlantic council had decided “to actively consider” assuming authority for the air-strike operations, the most contentious and divisive aspect of the campaign. Turkey and Germany, key Nato members, oppose air strikes on ground targets. Ankara wants Nato to take command and control of the air strikes campaign, meaning that the Turks would have greater influence and even a veto over the air strikes, since Nato operates by consensus. All the signs were that a Nato decision would be made by Tuesday 29 March when the foreign ministers from all those involved in the anti-Gaddafi campaign gather for a crucial conference in London. There are three main elements to the military offensive against Gaddafi stemming from UN security council resolutions – a no-fly zone, an arms embargo and the air strikes on ground targets based on the “right to protect”, safeguarding civilians in Libya from massacre. Nato is now in charge of the no-fly zone and the arms embargo, policed from a flotilla in the Mediterranean. The big bone of contention is the air strikes. A Nato officer suggested the problem may fade because of developments on the ground. “The majority of those missions have been successful and may be close to completion,” he said. Nato officers said on Friday that the timing of the handover from US to alliance control of the no-fly zone was unclear, but it would probably take 48 hours. The Nato operations are to be steered from Nato’s joint force command in Naples, while the nerve centre for the no-fly-zone air sorties will be a combat air operations centre in Izmir, Turkey. Libya Nato Middle East US military Muammar Gaddafi African Union Qatar United Arab Emirates United States Military Liam Fox Ian Traynor James Meikle guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Kentucky University officials have launched an investigation after two signs were discovered on campus using a racist slur to denounce President Obama. One sign was hung on a door of the law school and another on a campus bus shelter. A law professor said the sentiment in one of her…
Continue reading …NASA’s comet-hunting Stardust spacecraft ended its 12-year career with a final experiment experiment. The probe, which has traveled billions of miles since its launch in 1999, was ordered to burn the remaining fuel in its tanks, allowing engineers to calculate how much was left and improve fuel consumption models, Popular…
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