Headlines – Page 1174
-
News
Riverview barristers offer fixed-price divorces to wealthy
An innovative legal practice today launched a barrister-led fixed-price divorce service to cut costs for wealthy couples.
-
News
London courts to scale back for Olympics
Courts near Olympics venues and traffic hotspots will significantly cut their sittings from 27 July to 12 August, HM Courts and Tribunals Service said today. Officials are concerned that jurors and witnesses will be unable to attend hearings during a period when hundreds of thousands ...
-
News
Strikes and work to rule will hit courts from Thursday
Hundreds of court staff will refuse overtime until August as the public sector pensions row threatens to create a backlog in the court service. Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union are due to walk out on Thursday for a one-day strike over cuts to ...
-
News
The coalition’s tin ear problem
Today sees prime minister David Cameron and his Lib Dem deputy Nick Clegg ‘relaunch’ the coalition. It’s hard to imagine most lawyers being anything other than sceptical about this exercise, for reasons I’ll come to below. I probably have more time for politicians than most, ...
-
News
Legal aid equality a myth, says solicitor advocate Kelcey
Criminal firms should make it clear to legal aid clients how their publicly funded status affects the service they get, according to a leading solicitor advocate. Ian Kelcey, senior partner at Bristol firm Kelcey & Hall and Law Society council member said: ‘It’s a myth that ...
-
News
Legal aid now underpinned by international principles
There was a welcome development on legal aid this week, from of all places the United Nations. Legal aid is of course something usually dealt with at national level, and there are wide divergences in national treatment and national expenditure.
-
News
‘Ludicrous, immoral and wicked’: Bach bites back at LASPO
Lord (Willy) Bach, the peer who led Labour’s opposition to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill in the House of Lords, stepped down last week as shadow legal aid minister, a couple of days before the measure received royal assent to become an act. ...
-
News
Beware of identity thieves, SRA warns
Law firms could be held liable for losses caused by a fraudster stealing their identity even when they are innocent victims, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned. New guidance published today warns the profession on how to guard against falling victim to fraudsters. The regulator ...
-
News
Disclosure
Confidential information - Injunction against disclosure of information - Interim injunction BUQ v HRE: Queen's Bench Division (Mr Justice Tugendhat): 29 March 2012 The Queen's Bench Division allowed the defendant's ...
-
News
Employment
Discrimination - Sex discrimination Hawkins v Atex Group Ltd and others: Employment Appeal Tribunal (Mr Justice Underhill): 13 March 2012 The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed the employee's appeal against the ...
-
News
We need to make Ombudsman scheme fairer
Five years on from the arrival of the 2007 Legal Services Act we are still waiting for the ‘Big Bang’. What has come into existence seems less an entirely new universe, with a primordial cloud of traditional legal service providers accelerating away, transforming into clusters of one-stop-shop commercial enterprise (as ...
-
News
Marriage Foundation motives are laudable
Was Mr Justice Coleridge wise to arrange such a very public launch for his Marriage Foundation this week? Whether or not you support its aims - and I do, for reasons I will explain - you may well wonder whether a serving family judge should campaign for one kind of ...
-
News
Hot property?
Last week brought the gloomy news that the country has slid back into recession. The much feared double dip was to a large extent blamed on the contraction in the construction sector. It would seem that tricky times are ahead for real estate lawyers, but far from tightening their belts, ...
-
News
Law firms remain cautious despite profit growth
Law firms continue to rebuild profitability while keeping a tight rein on overheads, according to a respected annual bellwether of the sector’s financial health. Practices are also relatively bullish about future fees, with most expecting a 3% rise in 2012.
-
News
Female partner boost at magic circle
The number of women promoted to partnership at magic circle firms has risen by 50% - but they still make up just a quarter of all the promotions. A total of 95 solicitors were this week elected to partnership at the leading five firms. Of these, 24 were women - ...
-
News
Italian firm applies to become an ABS
A leading Italian law firm has joined the race to become an alternative business structure as the number of advanced applications approaches 100. Pirola Pennuto Zei & Associati, which has an annual turnover of €100m (£82m), could become one of the first non-UK law firms to ...
-
News
SRA reprieve for financial advice law firms
Some 70 firms set to lose their dual authorisation to give combined legal and financial advice later this year may have been granted a reprieve. The Solicitors Regulation Authority had told the affected firms that when they became alternative business structures they would lose their ...
-
News
Labour would ‘rebalance’ justice system and legal aid
Labour will not yet commit to reversing specific changes contained in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, the shadow justice minister said this week. However, Andrew Slaughter MP promised a future Labour government would ‘rebalance the justice system’ in favour of those ...