MPs have performed a valuable service for legal aid

Thursday, 04 February 2010 This has hardly been a vintage session for the dignity of parliament, with politicians of all major parties bundled into the stocks for claiming expenses for duck houses and the like. However, the Public Accounts Committee’s damning report on legal aid procurement does at least suggest that our elected representatives are capable of redemption. ...
statue-of-justice.jpg
Comment
Solicitors can be vital in preventing the abuse and neglect of elderly people

Caroline Bielanska the chair of Solicitors for the Elderly, the national association of specialist lawyers who advise older and vulnerable adults, their families and carers

On 7 January, Mr and Mrs Randell, an elderly Northamptonshire couple, were found dead in their freezing cold home. It was believed they had been dead for days. Although they died from natural causes, Northamptonshire County Council’s Safeguarding Adults Board is carrying out a review into the care provided.

Letters

Read more Letters to the editor

A licence to die

Sir Terry Pratchett’s proposals for a tribunal to license assisted dying will add a welcome and significant boost an idea we have long advocated.

False comparison

I read with interest Christopher Digby-Bell’s comments that solicitors should be able to factor in the likely additional costs to be incurred by incompetent solicitors on the other side when dealing with any transaction.

Touch of hypocrisy?

The Gazette carried a front-page article on 28 January under the headline ‘Blacklisted solicitors site plans growth’. The site facilitator says (with alarming frankness) ‘I don’t have the time or the resources to look at the argument from both sides’, so instead a flat fee is paid by solicitors to have their name removed!

News blog

Go to the full News blog page

Civil proof standard for disciplinary matters: just one problem
Rachel Rothwell
Tuesday, 09 February 2010

As we reported last week when the SRA takes on its Legal Services Act powers to conduct disciplinary matters itself – for lesser offences worth a maximum fine of £2,000...

0 Comments
Is the pope right to speak out about the Equality Bill?
Jonathan Rayner
Thursday, 04 February 2010

You have to hand it to the Equality Bill – its detractors come from every walk of life.
At one end of the spectrum there’s the white working class British guy who thinks the bill is all about giving his job to women or black people.

6 Comments
Why burnt-out lawyers are bad for business
Rachel Rothwell
Friday, 29 January 2010

Tough times call for tough measures, and there is no doubt that firms have had to bite the bullet last year, letting go of large numbers of staff in the hardest hit areas such as property and corporate. The fall-off in work made redundancy programmes inevitable.

2 Comments