All articles by Catherine Baksi – Page 103
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News
Home Office plans big cuts in forensic science service
The Forensic Science Service (FSS) could cut up to 800 jobs in a move to make it more competitive. The Home Office confirmed the company, which is owned by the government and analyses crime scene evidence for the police, has begun a consultation with its staff ...
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BVT ‘threatens criminal chambers as well as solicitors’ firms’
Criminal chambers as well as solicitors’ firms will go to the wall under best value tendering (BVT), practitioners have warned while calling for the profession to unite on the issue.
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Defence solicitors shun pilots of virtual court
Pilots of a ‘virtual court’ enabling defendants to make their first appearance before magistrates by video link have been snubbed by solicitors. Of the 21 firms in Westminster that are eligible to take part in the first 12-month pilot, only 11 have agreed to ...
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Legal aid firms campaign against CLAC plan
Legal aid firms in west London have formed a campaign group to fight proposals to set up a community legal advice centre (CLAC) in their area. SAGE – Solicitors Action Group for Ealing – has asked the London borough of Ealing to reconsider working with the ...
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MPs launch all-party legal aid group
MPs came together last night to launch an all-party parliamentary group on legal aid. The group's aim is to promote parliamentary and public understanding of the role of publicly funded legal services as a pillar of the welfare state and in reducing inequalities in society. ...
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Speak out on best value tendering, solicitors urged
The Law Society has called on members to respond to the government’s consultation on the introduction of best value tendering (BVT). Chancery Lane has warned that the Legal Services Commission’s plans, which will require firms to bid against each other to win contracts for legal aid ...
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Straw hails virtual court pilot but Chancery Lane demurs
Justice secretary Jack Straw praised the virtual court process yesterday after the first two cases to use the technology were heard this week at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court in London. However, the Law Society marked the occasion by giving voice to its ‘grave concerns’ about the initiative. ...
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Virtual courts – justice on the cheap?
Since 2006, ‘simple, speedy, summary’ justice has been the mantra of successive justice secretaries and at the heart of the government’s reforms to ‘rebalance the criminal justice system and increase public confidence’.
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Law society calls for government to act on HIP fees
The Law Society has called on the government to regulate the home information pack (HIP) industry to protect home buyers from secret referral fees paid to estate agents. Following a claim by a Channel 4 News investigation that pack prices could be inflated by more than ...
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News
Solicitors doubt judges’ impartiality in advocate appraisals
Solicitor-advocates have issued a warning that declining faith in judges’ impartiality in respect of different arms of the profession may imperil plans to assess publicly funded defence advocates. The Legal Services Commission is testing a process to ‘quality assure’ all publicly funded criminal defence advocates, both ...
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News
Law Society calls for halt to best value tendering scheme
The Law Society has urged the Legal Services Commission to stop its plans to roll out best value tendering for police station work and urged firms in the pilot areas to think carefully before taking part. In an outspoken address to a conference, ‘Sixty years of ...
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Best value tendering – what is to be done?
No one present at the Criminal Law Solicitors Association conference last week could have been left in any doubt about the profession’s almost-universal opposition to price-competitive tendering for the commissioning of police station legal aid work.
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Review: books cast a magic spell
The enchanted LibraryKaren Andrea Legend/YouWriteOn, £5.99 After visiting a bookshop promoting the works of Spanish novelists Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, and Carlos ...
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News
Virtual court ‘puts solicitors at risk’
Defence solicitors taking part in pilots of ‘virtual courts’ could be at risk of injury from their clients, practitioners have warned. The concern has arisen because the video equipment to be used in the pilot requires solicitors to sit alongside their client in a modified ...
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Bar considers action on ‘threat’ posed by solicitor-advocates
The Bar Council has set up a working group to tackle what it calls unfair competition from solicitor-advocates for Crown Court work.
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QC appointment review rejects proposals for radical change
The former head of the Queen’s Counsel selection panel has rejected Law Society proposals that would have increased the number of solicitors eligible to apply. In a report published last week, Sir Duncan Nichol said that widening access to the current award ‘would run a serious ...
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News
Best value tendering will drive firms out of business, say lawyers
Criminal practitioners have slammed the Legal Services Commission’s ‘reckless’ plans to test best value tendering, saying they will force many firms in the pilot areas out of business. The LSC is consulting on proposals to test the new method of commissioning services in police stations and ...
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News
Law Society warning over Registry’s early completion plan
Land Registry plans to streamline the completion process will increase solicitors’ costs and make conveyancing less efficient, the Law Society has warned. The new ‘early completion’ practice applies where an application for a discharge of whole has been received along with other applications, but ...
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News
Susskind, Mayson and Hodgart urge firms to plan for the future
If I were a lawyer faced with planning the future of my business at the same time as carrying out my day job, I think I’d feel exhausted, bewildered and not a little terrified.
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News
Law Society to review access to justice
The Law Society has launched a wide-ranging review of access to justice to mark the 60th anniversary of legal aid. Andrew Caplen, chairman of the Society’s access to justice committee, will study the long-term policy options for publicly funded criminal and civil legal services, the Society said this week. ...