Headlines – Page 1387
-
News
Social welfare warning over Manchester CLAS delay
The delayed timetable for Manchester’s new Community Legal Advice Service (CLAS) will make it impossible for some clients to obtain advice on social welfare problems, the Law Society has warned. The Legal Services Commission told the Gazette it will announce the bidders who have won contracts ...
-
News
Gazette seeks nominations for Legal Personality of the Year Award
The Gazette is looking for legal professionals who are ‘influential, inspirational and in the public eye’ for its inaugural Gazette Legal Personality of the Year award, with just over a week to go until the deadline for nominations. The award aims to recognise those who have ...
-
News
Firms seek to launch High Court challenge to LSC tender process
Some 31 firms across the north-east have joined forces in a bid to launch a High Court challenge to the Legal Services Commission’s recent family tender process, the Gazette has learned. The group of firms in Teesside, Durham and Newcastle, led by Helen Scourfield, associate at ...
-
News
JAG plan for advocate reaccreditation 'every five years'
All criminal solicitor-advocates and barristers including Queen’s Counsel would face compulsory reaccreditation every five years under proposals put forward by the Joint Advocacy Group (JAG) last week. The JAG was established by the Bar Standards Board, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and ILEX Professional Standards to develop ...
-
News
Fox Hayes partners face £1m fine
Eight former partners of collapsed Leeds firm Fox Hayes have been held personally responsible for a fine of nearly £1m which was levied against the firm 18 months ago by the Financial Services Authority and remains unpaid. The upper financial services tribunal decided earlier this year ...
-
News
Exclusive: Legal price comparison site set to break new ground
Law firms have been invited to register for free on what is claimed to be the first legal services price comparison website to give consumers instant details of costs. Nick Miller, who has practised in the Hull area as a high street practitioner for 22 years, ...
-
News
Professional indemnity insurance boost for sole practitioners
Travelers, the second-largest professional indemnity insurer, has struck an exclusive agreement with Quinn’s former broker, Prime Professions, to offer cover to sole practitioners left in limbo by Quinn’s expected departure from the market. Quinn presently insures around 1,900 sole practitioners and about 1,000 small firms.
-
News
Worse even than the LCS?
It may be difficult for many consumer-advising solicitors to imagine a service much more hostile to, and biased against, solicitors than that offered by the unqualified advisers at the Legal Complaints Service, forwhom ‘service-related complaint’ often appears to translate to ‘opportunity for solicitors to open their chequebooks, regardless of the ...
-
News
Solicitor comparison websites are an opportunity (though prices will fall)
The launch of the solicitors’ comparison website wigster.com, reported by the Gazette, is likely to engender polemic reaction from within the profession.
-
News
Chancery Lane in legal bid over family tender
The Law Society is preparing a high court challenge against the Legal Services Commission’s family tender process. Chancery Lane today informed the LSC of its intention to seek a judicial review of the exercise, which has slashed the number of firms able to do family law ...
-
News
Why some lawyers are turning away from the goal of equity partnership
Pity those poor equity partners. They may pocket an eye-watering wedge of the profits and dictate how the firm is run, but there can be a heavy price to pay.
-
News
Miners in court over alleged undersettlement of claims
The first known court actions against law firms for alleged undersettlement of sick coal miners’ government compensation claims began this morning. As first revealed by the Gazette in July, 18 cases will be heard today and tomorrow in Leeds County Court.
-
News
Midlands merger creates £30m turnover practice
Birmingham firm Shakespeare Putsman and Nottingham firm Berryman will merge to create a Midlands practice with £30m in combined turnover. The firm will employ 440 people across the East and West Midlands. Shakespeare Putsman merged with Stratford firm Needham & James in ...
-
News
Redundancies predicted over family legal aid tender
Some 90% of family lawyers think the legal aid tender result will lead to widespread redundancies across the profession, according to a survey of Resolution members. The poll also showed that 86% of respondents whose firms were unsuccessful in the tender have appealed. ...
-
News
Thoughts from the American Bar Association's annual meeting
I was at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco last week. Here are some conclusions.
-
News
Lack of capital putting firms at risk of Halliwells-style collapse
The legal market could see another law firm fall in a Halliwells-style collapse in the next 12 months due to lack of capital and high property costs, experts have told the Gazette. Accountants also warned that the demise of the north-west firm may make it more ...
-
News
Law Society opens PII helpline
The Law Society today opened its professional indemnity insurance (PII) helpline to help steer solicitors through this year’s renewals season. The Society said that the free helpline ‘will support solicitors having difficulties with professional indemnity insurance during the renewal period’. The Law ...
-
News
Baker & McKenzie reports profits boost
The London office of US and City firm Baker & McKenzie has upped its partner profits by more than half, the firm reported yesterday. Average profits per equity partner (PEP) shot up 56% to £650,000 for the year ending 30 June 2010, from £418,000 for the ...
-
News
How cost-cutting has yielded results at Baker & McKenzie
How do you conjure up £78,000 more pay for each of your equity partners without generating any more income than you did previously? Well, for a start, try asking the guys in Baker & McKenzie’s London office for a lesson in cost-cutting.
-
News
Terror laws overused by police, research suggests
Less than 4% of people arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 were convicted of terrorism-related offences in 2009, new research has found. Just eight people were convicted out of 207 arrests made under the act in 2009, according to Home Office statistics analysed by legal information ...