All articles by Catherine Baksi – Page 51
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News
Court proceedings times main cause of adoption delays
The most significant cause of delay for children needing adoption is the length of time taken to complete court proceedings, the education inspectorate Ofsted said this week. The Right on Time report found care proceedings took an average of 14 months to complete. It was ...
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HSBC will not face competition probe over panel
The Office of Fair Trading has declined to investigate HSBC over the small size of its conveyancing panel, saying the arrangement does not have a ‘sufficiently negative impact on competition’. East Grinstead sole practitioner Elaine McGloin contacted the watchdog after HSBC announced its new panel in ...
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Committal fee challenge fails
The High Court has ruled that the government’s decision to scrap lawyers’ fees for committal proceedings was lawful. Dismissing the judicial review sought by the Law Society, Lord Justice Burnton cited the impact of legal aid fee cuts on lawyers. 'No one ...
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Deputy district judge competition hit by IT glitches
Technical problems may have disadvantaged some candidates in the heavily oversubscribed deputy district judge competition, it has been alleged. The deputy district judge (magistrates’ court) selection exercise last October elicited nearly 1,500 applications for 28 vacancies – 54 candidates for each post.
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‘SupplyCo’ could help barristers get work back from solicitor-advocates
A new business model allowing barristers to accept instructions through an agency route could help the bar claw back work from solicitor-advocates, a legal consultant has suggested. John Binks (pictured) of the Bar Consultancy Network, a former manager at the Legal Services Commission, said a ‘SupplyCo’ model would give barristers ...
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Lawyers welcome planning policy reform
The government’s announcement of simplified planning rules has received a warm welcome from lawyers in the sector. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), published yesterday, replaces more than 1,000 pages of national policy with around 50 pages of guidance, aimed at ‘allowing people and communities back into planning’. ...
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Two more legal aid defeats as LASPO completes Lords
The government suffered two further defeats over its planned legal aid reforms last night after peers voted in favour of amendments to retain funding for children and young people. At the third reading stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill, the House ...
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Banks make quality scheme a must for new panel firms
The Law Society claimed further success for its Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) today after two banks announced that membership will be compulsory for firms joining their lender panels and two Top 100 firms signed up. Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank, both part of the National Australia ...
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Advocate quality deal leaves plea-only question unsettled
An agreement reached last week over accreditation for advocates has failed to settle a key point of difference between barristers and solicitors. In a joint briefing published on Friday, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), Bar Standards Board (BSB) and Ilex Professional Standards announced that they had reached an agreement on ...
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No time to waste on adoption reform
Until the government announced its plans to speed up adoptions this month, I confess I knew very little about the process. When I looked into it, I was shocked both by how fragmented the system is and how long it takes. ...
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Lenders move to common approach on panel management
The Law Society has welcomed a move by lenders to create a single national repository of data about firms on conveyancing panels. Leading lenders, including Lloyds Banking Group and Santander, have set up a working group, facilitated by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, to develop the repository. The group ...
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Advocacy compromise deal includes judicial assessment
Judicial assessment will remain a ‘central element’ of the controversial quality assurance scheme for advocates, legal regulators announced today. However it will apply only to Crown court advocates. Accreditations will begin this summer. Under an agreement on the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) announced ...
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News
CPS commits to serving paper files
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has pledged to continue serving paper documents to defence solicitors amid concerns about its plan to go digital from April. However, the Law Society said this week that criminal solicitors will continue to face ‘financial and regulatory risks’ in preparing ...
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Closing QS member blames Jackson
A two-partner member of the QualitySolicitors network has blamed its closure on the Jackson reforms and the ‘spectre’ of reduced fees for personal injury claims. QualitySolicitors Carters, which carried out personal injury and clinical negligence work, ceased trading at the end of February. The 10-year-old Peterborough ...
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Advocacy quality scheme deal ‘imminent’
An announcement to break the deadlock over the controversial quality assurance scheme for advocates (QASA) is ‘imminent’, the director of the Bar Standards Board said yesterday.
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Lawyers condemn budget’s £20m legal funding gesture
Chancellor George Osborne today promised £20m a year in new funding for the not-for-profit advice sector over the next two years. The sum was immediately and widely condemned as being not enough to replace shortfalls left by spending cuts. The announcement, in today’s budget, makes available ...
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Mind your public language, master of rolls tells judges
The master of the rolls has urged judges to use caution in speaking about public matters, warning they risk undermining the independence of the judiciary. Lord Neuberger said judges should be free to comment extra-judicially on a wide range of issues, but that they should be ...
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Watchdog calls for regulation of probate services
The Legal Services Consumer Panel calls today for probate and estate administration services to be regulated and made reserved activities along with will-writing. However in a submission to the Legal Services Board, following a call for evidence on will-writing, probate and estate administration services, the ...
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Libel reform coming, says McNally
Libel reform should not be delayed by the ‘Leveson tsunami’, the justice minister Lord McNally said today, giving a strong hint that a reform bill would feature in the government’s next legislative programme. ‘I would be immensely disappointed if it wasn’t in the Queen’s speech,’ McNally told a conference organised ...
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Unite joins interpreting campaign
Britain’s biggest trade union this week joined a campaign for the Ministry of Justice to bring courtroom interpreting services back in-house from a contract with Applied Language Solutions (ALS). ‘The courts system is descending into chaos, as suspects are not being informed of their rights and ...