All articles by Catherine Baksi – Page 28
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News
Starmer offers victims ‘right to review’
Victims of crime, including bereaved family members, will have the right to ask prosecutors to look again at a case following a decision not to charge or to discontinue proceedings. The government will today set out plans to allow appeals against decisions taken by the Crown ...
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Treasury counsel condemn reforms to judicial review
Treasury counsel have joined the wave of concern over the government’s legal aid reforms, warning they will ‘undermine the accountability of public bodies’ and create an ‘underclass’ who will be denied access to the courts. In a letter to the attorney general Dominic Grieve QC, 145 ...
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Removal of client choice is a red line - Society
The government’s ‘unworkable and damaging’ planned legal aid changes could push the justice system ‘beyond breaking point to a devastating collapse’, the Law Society has warned in its response to the Ministry of Justice consultation which ends today. Drawing on two sets of independent analyses - ...
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Co-op Legal Services unveils TV and radio campaign
Co-operative Legal Services kicks off a multi-million-pound advertising campaign today with its first TV and radio advertisements.
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Inspectors call for streamlined criminal justice process
Inspectors of police service and prosecutors have called for decisive action to streamline the criminal justice process and end ‘the spectre of unnecessary bureaucracy’. In a joint report published today HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) identify factors that create ...
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Don’t bad-mouth the profession, Hudson tells Co-op
Co-operative Legal Services has sought to distance itself from comments reportedly made by its sales and marketing director suggesting that putting the customer first is ‘an alien approach’ for solicitors. Reporting the launch of the Co-op Legal Services’s multi-million-pound TV and radio advertising campaign, Marketing Week ...
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National protest marks end of legal aid consultation
Lawyers across England and Wales will unite for a 'minute of unity' at 09.59 tomorrow to mark the deadline for responses to the Transforming Legal Aid consultation, which they warn will have a devastating effect on the criminal justice system. The Law Society has backed ...
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Bar regulator condemns legal aid plans
The Ministry of Justice’s ‘muddled’ and ‘fundamentally flawed’ legal aid reforms have been savaged by the bar’s representative and regulatory bodies.
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Bar bodies condemn legal aid plans
The Ministry of Justice’s ‘muddled’ and ‘fundamentally flawed’ legal aid reforms have been savaged by the bar’s representative and regulatory bodies.
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News
Hundreds protest as MoJ swamped by legal aid responses
The Ministry of Justice has received 13,000 responses to its Transforming Legal Aid consultation, it confirmed yesterday, as hundreds of lawyers demonstrated against the proposed cuts outside the ministry’s headquarters in London. The protest, organised by trainees at Tottenham firm Wilson Solicitors, marked the end of ...
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Stakes raised again as legal aid reforms loom
The profession’s increasingly vociferous campaign against the cuts outlined in the Transforming Legal Aid consultation reached a crescendo last week, ahead of tomorrow’s deadline for responses. Magistrates allege the changes could lead to situations where the only legally qualified person in court is the ...
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In-deed bows out of ABS venture
The ‘cottage industry’ nature of the conveyancing market makes the failure of conveyancing service In-deed Online ‘unsurprising’, the Gazette has been told. AIM-listed In-deed Online announced last week that it is to sell for £1 a law firm alternative business structure (ABS) that it acquired, along ...
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Chancery Lane calls for 28-day police bail limit
The Law Society has called for a statutory 28-day limit on the amount of time suspects are kept on police bail. Over 57,000 people are on police bail in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, according to figures obtained by the BBC. ...
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Residence test proposal ‘unlawful and unworkable’
Lawyers have warned that the proposed introduction of a residence test for civil legal aid is potentially ‘unlawful, discriminatory and unworkable’
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Threat to jobs at DWF
Job losses are expected at national firm DWF after it announced it is reviewing over 80 posts
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Criminal justice ignorance
‘I don’t believe that most people who find themselves in our criminal justice system are great connoisseurs of legal skills.’ The words of justice secretary Chris Grayling in his interview with the Gazette last week defending plans to remove the ability of suspects to choose their ...
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News
Tell clients to donate more in wills, charities group urges
A charities group has called on solicitors to remind clients to consider leaving money to good causes in their will, after a trial scheme increased legacies left by £1m.
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Clients still failing to ‘shop around’
The Legal Services Board has called on regulators to provide clear information on provider performance
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JR legal aid cuts ‘immunise government from challenge’ - silks
Ninety QCs have warned that government plans to cut legal aid for judicial review will ‘immunise’ the state from legal challenge.
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Legal aid cuts ‘will hammer middle England’
Four out of five adults in England and Wales would be unable to pay for a lawyer