All Law Gazette articles in Archive – Page 1511
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News
Independent costs regulator opens for business
Costs lawyers now have an independent regulator to uphold professional standards. The Costs Lawyer Standards Board (CLSB) formally took up its duties on 31 October after the Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL) delegated its regulatory role. The association is the sixth and final approved regulator set ...
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News
Jackson keeps a firm hand on the tiller
Last Monday, a group of leading experts in civil justice - many of them solicitors - gathered for a comprehensive discussion on some of the crucial detail concerning the rules required to implement Lord Justice Jackson’s radical reform of civil litigation costs. With the reforms ...
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News
Watchdog’s warning to legal regulators
The Legal Services Consumer Panel has today challenged regulators including the SRA to make the new compliance regime work, or face being replaced by a single regulator independent of the profession. In its response to a Legal Services Board consultation on the boundaries of ...
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News
Reforms will cut claims against NHS in half
Legal aid cuts and the Jackson reforms will slash the number of claims brought against the NHS by 50%, a senior member of the Civil Justice Council has predicted. Peter Smith, managing director of FirstAssist Legal Expenses Insurance, told Saturday’s Bar Conference that Jackson in particular ...
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Feature
BOOK REVIEW International Pre-Nuptial and Post-Nuptial Agreements
Author: David Salter, Charlotte Butruille-Cardew, Nicholas Francis QC, Stephen Grant This is a useful introductory walk into the jungle of nuptial agreements, with a little guidance as to how not to be dismembered by the wild beasts lurking ...
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News
Legal aid cuts ‘will undermine pro bono work’
Proposed cuts to legal aid threaten to undermine a decade of pro bono work, the legal profession has warned at the start of the tenth national pro bono week. A Law Society survey in the spring revealed that just under half of solicitors in private practice ...
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News
Is compliance an opportunity or a threat?
Even before the current outcomes-focused regulations came into force compliance was seen by many as a necessary evil. What firms are going to make of it with the new regulators out in force still remains to be seen. I don’t think that law firms will find ...
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News
The IBA in Dubai: an unexpected outcome
I was in Dubai last week for the International Bar Association annual conference, where the main topic of conversation was the action of the country’s government in cancelling the conference. The event went ahead after all, following compromises. The resulting discussions could not have been more relevant to the role ...
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News
Ombudsman will name lawyers and firms ‘in public interest’
The Legal Ombudsman has taken the highly controversial decision to name lawyers and law firms in circumstances where there is a ‘pattern of complaints’ against them or when it is in the ‘public interest’ to do so. The regulator denied that its object is to ...
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News
Plans to boost London-based firms abroad
New proposals to ‘cut through the regulatory maze’ inhibiting London-based international law firms and help them develop more unified global businesses have been published. The Solicitors Regulation Authority wants to give big cross-border practices more flexibility to operate in any form allowed in other countries, and also to incentivise foreign ...
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News
Inheritance tax and expenditure out of normal income
For many, inheritance tax (IHT) planning involves using the annual exemption of £3,000 per annum and making gifts with the hope that they will meet the required seven-year period for exemption to apply.
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News
Bar Conference 2011: barristers 'ready to strike' over tendering plan
Criminal barristers will take ‘direct action’ - including withdrawing their services - if the government presses ahead with its plans for price-competitive tendering, the chair of the Criminal Bar Association has warned. Max Hill QC (pictured) said that the proposal to introduce best value tendering for the provision of publicly ...
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News
Bar Conference 2011: chambers eye direct service offers
A growing number of barristers are looking to offer services directly to the public, which could help them gain legal aid contracts, the head of the bar told delegates. Peter Lodder QC (pictured) said hundreds of barristers had already completed the public access training courses that ...
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News
Bar Conference 2011: regulator anxious to maintain independence
Bar regulators are determined to avert an ‘Enron-style loss of independence’ in the profession, as the liberalisation of legal services gathers momentum, Bar Conference 2011 heard. Patricia Robertson QC (pictured), a member of the Bar Standards Board (BSB), said the body has no desire to ...
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News
Bar Conference 2011: women lawyers need ‘change of attitude’
More must be done to encourage women to stay at the bar and apply for silk and judicial office, according to a panel of eminent women in the profession. The panel, comprising Family Division judge Mrs Justice Theis, Bar Standards Board chair Lady Deech and barristers ...
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News
Abuse of process
The courts have made it difficult to stay criminal proceedings for abuse of process. Abuse can be argued in two ways: either that it is not fair that there be a trial; or that it is not possible for any trial to be fair. The first ...
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News
Double-digit growth for A&O but tougher times ahead
Magic circle outfit Allen & Overy has been rewarded for rapid worldwide expansion with a jump in income - but has warned there are difficult times ahead. The firm, headquartered in London, today announced half-year turnover of £582m, up 11% on this time last year. ...
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News
Support legal aid
I urge readers to help legal aid practitioners by writing to Lord Bach along the lines of my own recent letter to him, which followed a Gazettenews item on 20 October: ‘We are a "high street legal aid practice" whose very existence is seriously threatened by the 10% cuts in ...
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News
All rise for Mr Justice Squeezy
Obiter was rewarded for attendance at the Bar Council’s annual conference last weekend, not just by getting to spend a Saturday in the company of around 600 barristers, but with a novel conference freebie in the form of a squeezy judge. Inner Temple was giving ...
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News
Regulate all legal services says SRA
All legal services should come under a regulatory umbrella, the Solicitors Regulation Authority says today. In a response to the Legal Services Board’s consultation on reserved activities it calls for a fundamental review of regulation in England and Wales. The response says the LSB’s current approach ...