All Law Gazette articles in Archive – Page 1551
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News
Treat clients as customers or you’re doomed, says Ombudsman
Law firms will not survive if they continue to resist consumer demands for fairer pricing, the Legal Ombudsman has warned. A report published today states that up to a quarter of the 90,000 annual complaints relate to costs, where a client has felt overcharged, confused or been surprised at the ...
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News
SRA seeks online feedback
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has promised a ‘comprehensive review’ of problems encountered in its first year of online renewals.
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News
Fee structure frozen to 2013
Regulators today confirmed they will not change next year’s fee structure for solicitors. However the actual level of fees will not be set until later this year. The existing settings for practising fees were set at a board meeting of the Solicitors Regulation Authority last ...
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News
Ombudsman stance plays into hands of the Co-op
If I had a pound for every client/customer debate I’d heard, I’d probably have… £10 or so. Most of the time, I retreat before the argument gets going, ignoring this irrelevant and diversionary issue. Frankly, it matters not what the bill payer is called, just that ...
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News
Reprieve for specialist support service
The Specialist Support Provider Service (SSPS) has received a stay of execution after the Legal Services Commission agreed to extend current contracts for three months while it consults on ending the scheme.
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News
Liverpool Victoria wins bogus accident case
A leading insurer has secured the first known successful prosecution of a claimant who completely fabricated a car accident. Liverpool Victoria, which uses the trademark LV=, brought contempt proceedings against individuals who had reported a crash in Birmingham in 2008 and failed to attend court ...
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‘Vigorously’ defend cases after reforms, Djanogly tells insurers
Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly has told insurers he expects them to ‘vigorously defend’ cases after civil litigation reforms are enacted. Djanogly told an insurance industry conference last week that civil justice reforms will provide a more level playing field between claimants and defendants. ...
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News
Ticking all the right boxes
If the local plod happened to ask about your attitude to law-breaking, you would probably not confess to a list of crimes before knocking the bobby’s helmet off and doing a runner.
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News
The public element of the legal economy is already ‘running hot’
Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke opined this week that he did not know ‘why’ legal aid was so expensive. Considering ‘if’ it is expensive would be a more pertinent point. By most measures in a western economy the healthy balance between private and public is about ...
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ALS offers cash to beat interpreting boycott
The company running the controversial new courtroom interpreting service is offering cash incentives to interpreters who recruit friends, the Gazette has learned, as it emerged than nine out of 10 court interpreters are boycotting the service.
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News
Non-disclosure of assets in divorce proceedings
Is the non-disclosure of assets a common problem within divorce proceedings or not? Is it simply the case that suspicious spouses expect the worst of their soon-to-be former partner? Is it just the case that family lawyers are a cynical bunch? The 2011 Grant Thornton matrimonial ...
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News
Fiji hits back at scathing report
Fiji’s attorney general has launched a personal attack on the author of a report which claimed to expose a serious deterioration in the rule of law in the country. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum (pictured), the second most powerful member of Fiji’s government, described the report as a ‘joke’ ...
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News
Quality test 'should not protect barristers'
Controversy about the use of judicial evaluation in a new scheme to assess the quality of advocates has escalated, with solicitors’ bodies warning that the scheme could become a means to protect barristers.
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Feature
BOOK REVIEW Public Inquiries
Author: Jason Beer QC We live in an age of inquiry. On entering office, the coalition government inherited six ongoing inquiries. Within 14 months it had established three more, the most recent of which, the Leveson Inquiry into the ...
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News
Salford claims centre plagued by complaints
Complaints continue to pour in about the new centralised facility for handling civil claims, with under two weeks to go before the centre is set to become fully operational. A solicitor told the Gazette he was still ‘reeling from the nightmare’ of dealing with the County ...
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News
Clarke defends secret trials
Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke has defended plans to extend secret trials across a range of proceedings in the civil courts, arguing that a ‘unique and unprecedented’ terrorist threat means that evidence affecting national security can be safely disclosed only behind closed doors. A measure in the ...
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News
Solicitors need to wise up to contingency fees
One of the big uncertainties of the Jackson reforms is how big damages-based agreements (‘DBAs’, or contingency fees as they are more commonly known) are going to be. For the first time outside of employment cases, from April 2013 lawyers will be able to take ...
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News
Counting the costs
While not a member of the Law Society, I read the Gazette with great interest, particularly in relation to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill and the extension of the RTA scheme to include employers’ and public liability claims.
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News
Court upholds wasted costs order
The Court of Appeal has upheld a wasted costs order against a Buckinghamshire firm, ruling that it was ‘complicit’ in its client’s ‘manipulation’ of the court process by failing to give reasons for opposing a hearsay notice in a criminal trial.