Headlines – Page 1400
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Consumer protection is at heart of SRA’s 10 core principles
The legal media are awash with stories about the changes that face the legal profession. These include the arrival of alternative business structures (ABSs) and the possible consequences for firms on the high street; the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s new handbook and Code of Conduct; the SRA’s approach to outcomes-focused regulation ...
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Double take
The picture on page 12 of the 23 September Gazette also adorns the front cover of August’s journal of the Law Society of Scotland. Apparently, September’s vexed-looking figure is no longer concerned about the Cadder effect (so called because of a Scots case to do with a suspect’s access to ...
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Relaxation leads to risk
Stricter controls on financial advisers and stricter controls on banks – all designed to protect the public. At the same time the government is ready to throw legal services open to the wider market. Could it be that it is missing something rather obvious – ...
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LSB must address unsavoury tactics
I noted the items in the Gazette of 7 October relating to referral fees and legal expenses insurance. There are some insurers with whom it is a pleasure to work. However the behaviour of others does give cause for concern. For example: ...
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Higher rights advocates - we need evidence for further regulation
I was delighted to read Legal Services Consumer Panel chair Dr Dianne Hayter’s commitment to the reduction of regulation and her call for the expansion of consumer choice.
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Appointing legal executives to bench will diminish respect for judiciary
I read with dismay that a legal executive has been appointed as a deputy district judge. David McGrady, president of the Institute of Legal Executives, welcomes the appointment. I do not. I have been in practice as a solicitor for 41 years, following my father ...
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The training contract lottery
By Carly Moore-Martin, law graduate ‘How do I find a training contract?’ ‘Well, a good academic record is essential, as is attention to detail and communication skills. Show your commitment to a career in law, and that you have a life outside law. Be personable.’
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Higher education review may put off aspiring law graduates
Who’d want to be approaching adulthood today without a private income? Jobs are scarce; wages are stagnant or falling; affordable housing remains way out of reach; and cheap and secure pension schemes that do not rely on the lottery of investment returns are an endangered species. ...
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Family lawyers await LSC appeal move
Uncertainty mounted over the future of family legal aid contracts this week, as solicitors await a decision by the Legal Services Commission on whether it will appeal a High Court ruling that its tender process was unlawful. Some firms that did win contracts in the tender ...
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Herts firm to sue over conveyancing panel removal
A Hertfordshire firm that was removed from the Santander and Lloyds Banking Group conveyancing panels is seeking support to take legal action against the lenders, the Gazette has learned. Paul Judkins, a partner at Judkins, with offices in Hertford and Cheshunt, is seeking advice from counsel ...
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Accountants to apply for probate rights
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has begun its second application to the Legal Services Board for a probate services licence, with takeup expected to be high among small accountancy firms. The institute announced its intention to apply for the licence last week. ...
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Venue hire, Liverpool FC, banking, and sukuk issue
Venue hire: Sports law firm Couchmans advised Barclays on becoming the official retail bank at London’s O2 Arena. Fair Kop: US firm Shearman & Sterling advised New England Sports Ventures, which ...
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Firms may have folded to avoid high cost of PII premiums
A leading market expert has estimated that up to 175 firms closed their doors ahead of this month’s professional indemnity insurance (PII) renewal deadline rather than face the high cost of premiums, while a handful of firms are believed to be trading illegally because they cannot afford cover.
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US delays ABS decisions
A decision in the US on whether or not to allow UK alternative business structures to operate across the Atlantic is unlikely to be made until well after 2012, the new American Bar Association (ABA) president Stephen Zack told the Gazette in an interview this week. ...
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Banks to seek assurances from LLPs
The era of banks making unsecured credit freely available to firms may come to an end as banks review the risk profile of practices that have converted to LLP status, it was suggested last week. Chris Marston, head of professional practices at Lloyds TSB, told delegates ...
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Lawyers must protect vulnerable from effect of budget cuts – Djanogly
Lawyers and the legal system will need to find efficiencies and new ways of working to protect the vulnerable from the effects of budget cuts, legal aid minister Jonathan Djanogly told the Gazette this week. He said: ‘Our priority is not what lawyers do, or ...
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More general counsel facing regulatory investigations
UK general counsel have reported a huge increase in the number of regulatory investigations initiated against them, according to research by the London office of US firm Fulbright & Jaworski. The firm’s Litigation Trends survey of 128 UK in-house lawyers across a range of sectors found ...
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Employment solicitor sets up legal aid support network
An employment solicitor has set up a website dedicated to offering support to legal aid firms that are closing down, merging or moving away from publicly funded work.
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Chancery Lane publishes Jackson review response
The Law Society today warned against piecemeal implementation of Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals on civil litigation costs, telling the government that this could be ‘very damaging’ to access to justice. Jackson himself has said that his reforms will not succeed unless they are implemented as a whole.
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TUC brands asbestos ruling 'obscene'
Victims of a deadly disease caused by work-related asbestos exposure could miss out on compensation following a Court of Appeal ruling last week, campaign groups fear. The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) and trade union Unite branded the victory for insurance companies as ‘obscene’. The ...