Friday, July 21, 2006
More women and ethnic minority lawyers are QCs
Record proportions of women and ethnic minority lawyers have been awarded the elite rank of Queen's Counsel under a new appointments system set up to replace the lord chancellor's role in the process.
In the first year of the independent scheme, 68 women, more than ever before, applied to be QCs, and 33 succeeded. The previous high was in 1999-2000 when 12 out of 53 women were appointed. This year there were 443 applicants for the historic title, also known as "silk", which shows seniority and allows practitioners to charge higher fees. Ten of the 175 new silks are from ethnic minorities.
Read more: DiversityJapan foreign-language business rebounds in FY 2005
The market for foreign-language businesses, including schools, learning materials, translation and interpretation services, rose 0.9 percent in fiscal 2005 from the previous year to 638.3 billion yen, a private research institute said Friday.
Read more: Japanword of the day: exculpate
exculpate \EK-skuhl-payt; ek-SKUHL-payt\, transitive verb:
To clear from alleged fault or guilt; to prove to be guiltless; to relieve of blame; to acquit.
Each member is determined to exculpate himself, to lay the blame elsewhere. -- Joseph Wood Krutch, "How Will Posterity Rank O'Neill?", New York Times, October 21, 1956
At the same time, they said, representatives of the inspector general's office at the CIA were generally protective of the intelligence agents involved in the matter, highlighting evidence that seemed to exculpate them. -- Tim Golden, "Guerrilla's Asylum Analyzed Amid Contradictory Claims", New York Times, December 12, 1996