All Law Gazette articles in Archive – Page 1294
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News
Government to review use of cautions
The justice secretary launched a review today to examine the way cautions and on-the-spot fines are used by the police and Crown Prosecution Service. It follows reports that they have been inappropriately used to punish more serious offences which should be dealt with by the courts. ...
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Lovells agrees merger with Hogan & Hartson
City firm Lovells and US firm Hogan & Hartson will unite to form Hogan Lovells on 1 May next year after partners gave the green light to a merger. Hogan Lovells will have combined revenues of around $1.8bn (£1.1bn) and 2,500 lawyers in more than 40 ...
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Staff shortage stops Burma probe into international law firms
An investigation into international law firms’ dealings in Burma has been called off because of a staff shortage at the organisation planning the probe. Pressure group Burma Campaign UK (BCUK) said this week that it will not be publishing its annual ‘dirty list’, a list of ...
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Commons committee renews call for statutory lobbying register
The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has renewed its call for a statutory register of parliamentary lobbyists, while also criticising the government for its slow progress in bringing about effective self-regulation of the lobbying industry. PASC published a lengthy report on lobbying in January, to which ...
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‘Chaos’ predicted over virtual court pilot
Solicitors have predicted ‘chaos’ after provisions forcing defendants in custody in the virtual court pilot areas to use the videolink for court appearances were brought in yesterday. A pilot of the scheme, which enables defendants to make their first court appearance via videolink from the police ...
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Ghosts of Christmas past and future: client data
Here is an easy measure of how well your firm might face up to the increasing competition in the legal services market: did your firm send out personalised Christmas cards this year?
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Human rights committee warning on civil litigation funding curbs
The government must consider evidence that civil court costs rules and funding limitations are preventing people who have suffered human rights abuses at the hands of UK companies from seeking redress, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said today. In its report on business and human ...
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It’s time to stop taking liberties with human rights
Adolf Hitler wouldn’t have known a human right if he had found one nibbling on his breakfast pumpernickel. We’re all agreed on that. The British people, on the other hand, are upstanding citizens who champion the weak and whose love of cricket embodies our profound devotion to fair play.
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It’s time to stop taking liberties with human rights
Adolf Hitler wouldn’t have known a human right if he had found one nibbling on his breakfast pumpernickel. We’re all agreed on that. The British people, on the other hand, are upstanding citizens who champion the weak and whose love of cricket embodies our profound devotion to fair play.
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News
Data page for December 2009
The data page is the financial rates and data compiled for the Law Society Gazette by MoneyFacts group, the UK's largest supplier of savings and mortgage data. ...
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Government’s £23m legal aid cuts ‘affront to justice’
The government will cut £23m from the £2.1bn legal aid budget by reducing fees for police station work, scrapping file review payments in criminal cases and consolidating committal hearing payments. The government said that its reforms are ‘designed to help sustain the legal aid budget’ and ...
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Unemployment rate among solicitors climbs by 400%
The number of unemployed solicitors on benefits has quadrupled during the recession to more than 1,800, according to an analysis of official statistics by the Conservative Party reported in today’s Daily Telegraph. Along with architects, surveyors and vets, solicitors comprise one of the professional groups to ...
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Law Society to advise students about the risks of a legal career
The Law Society is to step up its campaign to warn students of the risks and challenges faced in pursuing a legal career. Expanding the Society’s information campaign is one of a number of proposals being considered by the education and training committee to address the ...
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Law Society threatens legal action over OLC jobs
The Law Society has threatened the government and the new solicitor complaints-handling body with legal action following their decision not to automatically reassign staff from the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) to the new Office for Legal Complaints (OLC). The functions of the LCS are to be ...
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Solicitors dismayed over chancellor's legal aid budget cuts
Solicitors reacted with dismay last week to further planned cuts in the £2bn annual legal aid budget outlined in chancellor Alistair Darling’s Pre-Budget Report. The chancellor included plans by 2012/13 to make ‘£360m of savings in the criminal justice system by improving case management, putting underperforming ...
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What is the best way to combat legal aid cuts?
By now many of you will be as inured to the howls of outrage from the profession over legal aid cuts as you are to the cuts themselves. Both are becoming an almost weekly, even daily, occurrence, it saddens one to report.
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Another brickbat in the Wall
The government certainly got a bashing in Lord Justice Wall’s recent speech to the Association of Lawyers for Children. But he also raised an impressively bushy eyebrow at the media. Wall (pictured) has given his wholehearted backing to president of the family division Mark Potter’s hard-hitting speeches on the problems ...
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How will the SRA apply ‘principles-based regulation’ to legal services?
‘Principles-based regulation means moving away from reliance on detailed prescriptive rules and relying more on high-level principles to set the standards by which regulated firms must conduct business.’ So said Lord Hunt in his report on legal services regulation, which advocated such a switch. The potential ...
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Solicitors ‘to profit’ from instructing barristers following BSB rule changes
Solicitors will for the first time be able to profit from instructing barristers following rule changes agreed last month by the Bar Standards Board (BSB), a legal businessman has said. Peter Rouse, director of online barristers’ directory Bar Select, said the new rules on how barristers ...
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City firms failing to support solicitors who want to become judges
Concern is mounting over City firms’ failure to support solicitors who want to become judges, Law Society chief executive Des Hudson was expected to tell the Law Society Council this week. In his monthly report, Hudson also suggests that a ‘similar message’ might emerge from a ...