Headlines – Page 1062
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Grayling faces new storm over JR curbs
New measures designed to cut the number of judicial reviews received a critical reception from immigration and environmental lawyers today. The measures, confirmed today after a consultation that ended in January, include: - a £215 court fee for anyone seeking a ...
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SRA wants compensation fund to cover intervention bill
The SRA has decided not to impose a one-off levy on solicitors to pay for the rising cost of intervening in failed firms, but wants the multimillion-pound bill to fall on the rapidly diminishing compensation fund instead.
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SRA getting better at complaints – independent assessor
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has ‘significantly improved’ how it deals with complaints about its service, an independent assessor has concluded. The Independent Complaints Review Service (ICRS) upheld or partially upheld 75 cases out of 245 separate complaints issued from October 2011 to the end of 2012. ...
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England and Russia: resolving jurisdictional disputes
In recent years London has seen litigants from Russia and other former Soviet republics (the Commonwealth of Independent States or CIS) flock to its commercial courts and play out in the public courtrooms of the Royal Courts of Justice details of the murky ‘wild capitalism’ years which followed the collapse ...
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Collapse of banking deal won’t affect legal services, says Co-op
Co-operative Legal Services (CLS) has insisted that the collapse of the Co-operative Group’s planned purchase of 632 Lloyds Banking Group branches will have no bearing on its legal services expansion. The Co-op revealed today that it had withdrawn from the process, blaming the economic environment and ...
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CPS: Keir Starmer to step down after five-year term
Keir Starmer QC will step down as director of public prosecutions later this year, the Crown Prosecution Service announced today. Former human rights barrister Starmer, 51, who took up the post in 2008, has indicated that he will not seek to extend his five-year term of ...
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Law firm marketing essentials
With increased competition and tough economic conditions set to continue for the foreseeable future, how can you plan for growth in your law firm? There are essentially four sources of potential new business which need to be explored. First, look at marketing more of your current ...
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May unveils bilateral treaty to deal with Qatada
The proposed treaty with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan that home secretary Theresa May announced today as part of her continuing efforts to deport suspected terrorist Abu Qatada excludes the use of evidence obtained through torture and also allows for the press and public to be excluded from a trial ...
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Revealed: Grayling's plan to drive a wedge between bar and solicitors
Justice secretary Chris Grayling has sought to drive a wedge between solicitors and barristers over the drastic plans to cut criminal legal aid and restructure the market, the Gazette has learned. At a meeting attended by circuit leaders and civil servants yesterday, Grayling said that ...
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QASA gets go-ahead from bar regulator
The Bar Standards Board has approved the handbook for the controversial Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. At the regulator’s meeting last night, lay member Malcolm Cohen was the sole dissenting voice. He told the board: ‘The scheme is not proportionate to the perceived risk and I ...
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Deaf clients: in the courtroom
We have previously explored and made suggestions for reasonable adjustments required in order to make legal proceedings accessible to deaf people. The courtroom is no exception to this rule and once again an assessment of need for each deaf client will be required to ensure that adjustments are made and ...
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MoJ announces new deal for courtroom interpreters
The Ministry of Justice today announced measures which it said would increase the take-home pay of interpreters in a bid to improve the quality of the service to courts and the justice sector.
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SRA right to raid compensation fund - for now at least
It all goes very quiet at the SRA board meetings when the subject of interventions comes up. Director Richard Collins updated the situation yesterday with the solemnity of a radio announcer reading out the names of kittens who have died that day.
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Whiplash claims at five-year low, official figures reveal
The number of whiplash claims has fallen by almost 60,000 in the past year, according to the government’s own figures. A freedom of information request to the Department for Work and Pensions’ compensation recovery unit has revealed there were 488,281 whiplash claims in Great Britain in ...
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PCT: reverse psychology
Two questions. Question one: Have you signed the petition protesting about price-competitive tendering? Question two: Do you think it will make the slightest difference? I wonder if we have got it completely wrong in our protesting. The more we protest the less likely the protests ...
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Society warns against muddling funding for interventions
The Law Society has called for ‘proper transparency’ if regulators are to pay intervention costs out of compensation fund reserves. The Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed on Wednesday it wants to cover an estimated £7m overspend on interventions this year by using money held in the compensation fund. The SRA says ...
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Aux murs, citoyens
Relations between the UK government and judiciary may not be perfect, but they’re probably better than over the channel where the French political class has been transfixed by the discovery of a ‘mur des cons’ in the headquarters of the Magistrates Union. The wall is ...
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Ability to defend clients in complex cases is being seriously eroded
by Anthony Barnfather, head of the regulatory team at Pannone After years of cuts and ‘stealth’ erosion, moves to slash almost a third from rates in very high-cost cases (VHCC) herald the death knell for effective defence representation in such cases – denying to individuals in ...