Boundary disputes between neighbours can start off as minor disagreements but can easily turn into long-term legal battles. Neighbours in Staffordshire have become painfully aware of this as a dispute between two households has taken an increasingly ugly turn over the past three years.

The dispute began over shared parking between Mystic Ed (Francis Ward) and his partner Fluffy, and Bill Podmore. (more…)

Two Libyan dissidents have instructed their lawyers to bring a civil claim against Sir Mark Allen, a former senior MI6 officer. The lawyers are suing Allen over allegations that he rendered the two dissidents to Libya where they say they faced severe ill-treatment.

The two men are suing Allen for ‘complicity in torture’ and ‘misfeasance in public office’. Additionally, the two men are claiming damages for ‘unlawful detention, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, batteries and assaults’. (more…)

Lord Justice Jackson addressed the matter of e-disclosure in his seventh lecture on implementing his proposed reforms to civil litigation. Jackson noted that legal professionals need to become better in dealing with e-disclosure as failure to do so will effectively waste financial resources.

Presently, Jackson noted, “Relatively few solicitors and even fewer barristers really understand how to undertake e-disclosure in an effective way”. E-disclosure relates to the management of electronic documents in civil litigation proceedings. (more…)

A large part of the legal profession has been overwhelmingly critical of the Government’s legal aid budget cuts and the potential harm on access to justice. The cuts to legal aid are expected to cause a rise in third-party litigation funding, an area which currently lacks regulation.

It is now hoped that a voluntary code of conduct for third-party litigation funders, to be published later this month, will partly rectify the harm which will follow from the legal aid cuts. (more…)

Eccentric pop star Lady GaGa has been granted an injunction by the High Court in London against the creators of the popular kids’ website, Moshi Monsters, in order to stop one of their characters, Lady Goo Goo, from releasing a single.

The single is called the Moshi Dance and was set tobe released after the video received more than 3.5million hits on YouTube. (more…)

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has failed to stop his autobiography from being published today by the publisher Canongate.

The book, which was written by ghost writer Andrew O’Hagan after 50 hours of interviews, contains details of his childhood in Australia and the early days of Wikileaks. It also discusses his encounters with the two women who claim he sexually assaulted them in Sweden. (more…)

The internet is an amazing resource but it cannot always be trusted. Some websites can be informative if you have a general interest in the way the law works but others can be seriously misleading. If you are considering taking someone to court or are being taken to court yourself, you are always best off being represented by a professional lawyer. Be very wary of any website that claims you can avoid paying tax, speeding fines, or being sued for a breach of contract simply by the use of a magic legal formula. The law does not work that way. (More…)