All Law Gazette articles in Archive – Page 1273
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News
Society's PII helpline to target assigned risks pool
The Law Society has announced that from next Monday, 5 October, its professional indemnity insurance helpline will expand its service to assist firms that have fallen into the assigned risks pool because they were unable to obtain cover before the renewal deadline.
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Lord Hunt publishes regulation review
A wide-ranging review of solicitors' regulation commissioned by the Law Society and conducted by Lord Hunt of Wirral (pictured) is published today. Among the Tory peer's 88 recommendations is a proposal for what he describes as 'authorised internal regulation', under which law firms of all sizes would regulate themselves subject ...
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A riposte to Professor Richard Susskind
I attended last week a meeting in Dublin of the chief executives of bars and law societies from around the world – well, from Europe, and common law jurisdictions beyond Europe (Africa, North America and the Asia Pacific region).
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Can lawyers agree over contingency fees?
Contingency fees, which are widely used in employment tribunals but banned in other areas of law such as personal injury, have come to the fore recently as various bodies have submitted their responses to the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on the issue, launched in July.
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What kind of law firm are you? NB: You may not know the answer
The legal services market appears to be on the up, at least for the big firms. Mortgage approvals are rising. Halifax Legal Express wants to recruit a panel to deal with the legal services enquiries its automated system can't handle.
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Chancery Lane ‘dismay’ at Co-op’s panel cull
The Law Society has expressed its ‘dismay’ at the decision by Co-operative Financial Services to cut 3,600 sole practitioners from its conveyancing panel. The Society said that the Co-op has jeopardised its ethical image by threatening consumer choice and putting solicitors’ livelihoods at risk. Access to ...
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London councils slash £1.5m in legal spend
Six London boroughs have joined together to slash almost £1.5m a year in legal fees. The London Boroughs Legal Alliance (LBLA), which links lawyers from Harrow, Hammersmith & Fulham, Camden, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Kensington & Chelsea borough councils, aims to save £1.44m a year by using ...
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How the ABI wants to get the PII market back on track
The frenetic pace of the renewals season is now over and this year seems, for many, to have been the most challenging yet. With the 1 October deadline gone, there has been anger, disappointment and worry among smaller solicitors’ firms over the cost and availability of cover, as highlighted in ...
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Law firms should be able to ‘self govern’, says Hunt report
By Paul RogersonA wide-ranging review of solicitors’ regulation commissioned last year by the Law Society and conducted by Lord Hunt of Wirral was published on Monday. Among the Tory peer’s 88 ?recommendations is a proposal for what he describes as ‘authorised internal regulation’, a new system of self-governance available ...
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Human rights are above politics - they are our greatest ethical challenge
by Sir Geoffrey Bindmana consultant with Bindmans and chair of the British Institute of Human Rights The recent symposium organised by the Law Society’s International Human Rights Committee in conjunction with the Essex University Human Rights Centre marked a huge advance in the Society’s engagement with ...
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Media reaction to the Purdy aftermath highlights a wider ignorance
Has Keir Starmer QC really made it possible for relatives to help loved ones to die without fear of prosecution, as the Times reported? Did the director of public prosecutions issue ‘tick-box guidelines’, as the Telegraph believed?
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Law firm wins injunction against departing solicitor
Law firms can obtain a ‘springboard’ injunction to prevent solicitors from taking clients with them if they leave suddenly, a High Court decision has indicated – even if their employment contract does not expressly forbid taking clients.
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Law Society warning on legal aid cuts for vulnerable
The Law Society has warned that vulnerable people could be left with no access to the courts under ‘misleading’ plans put forward by the Ministry of Justice. An MoJ consultation proposed removing legal aid from clients who do ‘not reside’ in the UK. At a meeting ...
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MoJ announces review of legal aid delivery
The Ministry of Justice has today announced a review into the delivery of legal aid to ensure the £2bn budget is spent correctly. Legal aid minister Lord Bach has asked Sir Ian Magee, a former permanent secretary at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, to assess the ...
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American Bar Association president scrutinises UK reforms
The US legal profession is scrutinising the UK’s legal services ‘big bang’ as part of a worldwide review that could lead to its own legal services revolution, the Gazette has learned. In her first UK interview since taking office, Carolyn Lamm, president of the 400,000-strong American ...
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Helping solicitors in the ARP
Reading the latest article describing the huge number of firms in the ARP my immediate reaction was one of sympathy. Last year, to my huge shock, I found myself in the ARP. I have moved on and life is good, but at the time it was a dreadful feeling.
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SRA considers reducing premium in assigned risks pool
The Solicitors Regulation Authority held a meeting this week to consider whether or not to reduce assigned risks pool (ARP) insurance premiums after a record number of firms were forced to join the pool.
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Local government: determining bias – and what is a public authority?
‘In law,’ Lord Steyn once reminded us, ‘context is everything’. And context was particularly relevant on 24 June this year, when the Court of Appeal agreed with Mr Justice Collins that a planning inspector’s decision was tainted by apparent bias...
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Office for Legal Complaints to be based in Birmingham
The Office for Legal Complaints, the new body created by the Legal Services Act 2007 to handle complaints about solicitors, is to be based in Birmingham. The OLC, which has been allocated set-up costs of around £15m and annual running costs of £19.9m, will replace the ...
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Hunt endorses 'thrust' of Smedley as peace breaks out between SRA and City
For a man in his late 60s, the Conservative peer and Beachcroft veteran Lord Hunt of Wirral is a veritable Stakhanovite. Not for him the retirement being enjoyed by many who once sat round Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet table. Hunt’s much-heralded report on regulation is a ...