Dorset Chamber has launched the prestigious Dorset Business Awards 2024. Its chief executive, Ian Girling, kicked off the Dorset Business Awards with guests, former winners and Festival Partners at the Dorset Museum and Gallery in Dorchester on 23 April. Honours are up for grabs in 10 categories to celebrate the best of business and recognise success among firms and individuals across the county. New categories for this year are Social Impact and Digital and Technology. The free to enter annual contest is back for its second year following a sell-out year and its return from a four-year hiatus ..read more

Richard Light, Director, in our Private Client team retires on 30 April 2024 after 10 years at Lester Aldridge. Richard has had a long and varied career advising high-net-worth individuals on all aspects of personal taxation, including income tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax. We chat to Richard about his life, career and plans. In 1981, Richard left school to attend college and very soon realised his desire to earn money, so after a year made the move to start the Youth Opportunity Programme for six months, earning £26 per week with the Tax Office. At the end of this time, he was off ..read more

Lester Aldridge is once again delighted to be involved in The YMCA Big Sleep Easy 2024. This year’s event was launched as a joint initiative at Barchester Healthcare’s Parley Place Care Home on Thursday 18 March. The Big Sleep Easy involves local businesses spending a night sleeping rough to raise awareness and funds to support those experiencing homelessness. Instead of sleeping on the streets, participants construct makeshift shelters from cardboard boxes and tarpaulins in a safe environment. This contrasts with the harsh reality faced by thousands of rough sleepers in the UK every night. Ho ..read more

The Dorset Business Festival returns for its second year, promising an expanded programme of events aimed at celebrating and championing businesses’ role as a force for good in the community. From 30 September to 10 October, the festival, organised by Dorset Chamber, will be a hub of activity, fostering networking opportunities, thought leadership discussions, and celebrations within the business community. Building upon the success of its inaugural year, which saw participation from over 1,000 businesses, this year’s festival is set to be even more impactful. Under the theme “Business – A For ..read more

Lester Aldridge proudly congratulates Jodie West on her recent qualification as a Chartered Legal Executive within our esteemed Real Estate Finance team. A Chartered Legal Executive is a qualified lawyer specialising in specific areas of law in England and Wales. Jodie’s accomplishment reflects her dedication and expertise in her chosen field. The rigorous CILEX qualification process provides students like Jodie with practical work experience, equipping them to meet the demands of the workplace. Jodie’s journey to qualification involved extensive training, spanning four years, culminating in h ..read more

Our Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence team entered a team for this event, which was held on 16 April 2024 in aid of Wessex Cancer Support.  Spoiler alert – we didn’t win the quiz! We are trying to recover from the disappointment of losing out on first place by 1 point. For any interested parties, there is no white-coloured ring on the Olympic flag – what were we thinking?  However, in true Olympic style, it was the taking part that mattered. The quiz was a great opportunity to get together with other lawyers in the area and to support a fantastic charity, Wessex Cancer Support ..read more

In January 2024, we reported on the changes to the Ofsted post-inspection complaints arrangements following Ofsted’s consultation on the proposed changes. Ofsted has now published its new guidance about how those proposed changes would work in practice for Ofsted events/ inspections, which have taken place on or after 4 April 2024. For inspections which took place before 4 April 2024, the previous process remains in force. Informally resolving concerns Ofsted has stated that it expects providers to raise concerns about its work/ inspections as soon as they arise and directly wit ..read more

In a previous article, ‘Your Intellectual Property and AI‘, we discussed Generative AI’s potential infringement of existing intellectual property rights. This article focuses on copyright protection relating to works created by Generative AI. We consider arguments relating to whether copyright law in the UK should be reformed to provide new rights to works created by Generative AI. Copyright and Generative AI – an introduction Copyright is an intangible property right that allows a piece of work to be reproduced in any form. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) governs copyr ..read more

When was the last time that you checked your employee handbook was up-to-date? Do you check that your policies are still appropriate on a regular basis, or has your handbook been gathering dust since it was drawn up? A good employee handbook is a resource that is relied upon by your employees and managers on a regular basis, and that is reviewed appropriately to check that it still complies with current legislation. If you were thinking that it was time to update your employee handbook (or are now having read the above), then now is a particularly good time to do so. This is because several ke ..read more

Melanie Lidstone-Land, Senior Associate in our Clinical Negligence department has recently settled an extremely complex orthopaedic claim for her client and securing a seven-figure sum for damages. Our client was left disabled as a result of an underlying pain condition (not caused by negligence) and a negligently performed left elbow replacement operation.  As a result of the operation, our client suffered a chronic infection in her elbow joint meaning that she was then unable to continue with medication for rheumatoid arthritis.  This, in turn, meant that our client’s disease progr ..read more