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NLJ this week: Dogs, dates & debt-chasers

13 June 2025
Issue: 8120 / Categories: Legal News , Procedure & practice , Civil way , Artificial intelligence , Family
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Deadlines are crucial, but how is the date and time determined? In this week’s NLJ, former district judge Stephen Gold explores a recent case in which solicitors made ‘an innocent day-counting mistake’. Gold notes that the case also sheds light on the need for ‘promptness’

He shares advice for ‘any practitioner arguing for or against the appointment of an intermediary for a vulnerable witness in family’, and urges them to study a particular Court of Appeal case. He remarks on ‘an essential case’ in the small claims track, involving an invention for canines, and also covers Garfield, an artificial intelligence (AI) debt-chasing lawyer now authorised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. 

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Hugh James—Phil Edwards

Serious injury teambolstered by high-profile partner hire

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Freeths—Melanie Stancliffe

Firm strengthens employment team with partner hire

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

DAC Beachcroft—Tim Barr

Lawyers’ liability practice strengthened with partner appointment in London

NEWS
Tech companies will be legally required to prevent material that encourages or assists serious self-harm appearing on their platforms, under Online Safety Act 2023 regulations due to come into force in the autumn
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
The Bar has a culture of ‘impunity’ and ‘collusive bystanding’ in which making a complaint is deemed career-ending due to a ‘cohort of untouchables’ at the top, Baroness Harriet Harman KC has found
Lawyers have broadly welcomed plans to electronically tag up to 22,000 more offenders, scrap most prison terms below a year and make prisoners ‘earn’ early release
David Lammy, Ellie Reeves and Baroness Levitt have taken up office at the Ministry of Justice, following the cabinet reshuffle
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