Headlines – Page 1519
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BVT consultation
I write with reference to the letter in support of best value tendering (see [2009] Gazette, 23 July, 11). I am pleased to see that others recognise the potential benefits of best value tendering (BVT). I would, however, reassure Gazette readers that in developing our proposals we have spoken with ...
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National interest
We read with interest the Benchmarks item on forced marriage protection orders (see [2009] Gazette, 23 July, 19).
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Debt blocks access
The final report of the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions should have been seen as the propaganda it is.
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Free dispute mechanism does the bar no credit
I wonder how many solicitors undertaking occasional litigation are aware of the Bar Council’s terms of work, and in particular the mechanism that comes into play if the solicitor disputes a barrister’s fee note.
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Blakemores does battle
Being a lawyer is not all about sitting at a desk, as this fearsome bunch from Blakemores in Birmingham and Leamington Spa will attest. Sometimes it is also about walking through minefields, fighting with guns, spending the night in a homemade shelter, and – from the look of it – ...
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Smart money
They say cleanliness is next to godliness. So according to the results of a survey carried out by national dry cleaners, Johnsons Cleaners, lawyers must be pretty close to the Almighty. They are apparently the second most unsullied professionals, only beaten by the uber-spruced financial services workers. An impressively hygienic ...
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Front runners
It wasn’t just City pavements which took a pounding as a result of this month’s Standard Chartered City Race; this column also received its own beating from Baker & McKenzie associate Sally Onn, over last week’s remark that no lawyers made it into the top ten in the Standard Chartered ...
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Cashflow: is your IT supplier doing the business for you?
I have a thing about financial reports and consistency. The problem for IT suppliers is that everybody they supply wants something different. I can sympathise with that.
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The politics of class struggle
There’s real irony in Alan Milburn’s report on Fair Access to the Professions. It reintroduces to the diversity debate a subject that is supposed to have been consigned to the dustbin of history (as Trotsky would certainly not have put it) by ‘third-way’ proselytisers like Milburn himself – class.
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Controversy continues over miners' claims
The work that solicitors have done under the mineworkers’ compensation scheme has attracted the attention of press, parliament and the public ever since details of wrongdoing began to emerge earlier this decade. But the debate has focused on two controversies: the millions of pounds that solicitors have earned, and the ...
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Law lords sit for the last time before moving to the Supreme Court
So farewell, then, law lords. The appellate committee of the House of Lords is sitting today for the last time in 133 years, hearing a short immigration appeal and then delivering seven judgments. On 1 October, the law lords will be transformed into the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
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Claims management regulator places blame firmly on solicitors
Law firms may be feeling the pain of the recession, but it seems business is booming for claims managers. As we report this week, a study by the claims management regulator, which sits in the Ministry of Justice, shows that the number of players moving into this market is increasing ...
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ITV and Lovells form pro bono partnership
ITV Legal has launched a new pro bono initiative with City firm Lovells as part of an innovative partnership programme with its panel law firms. The ITV Legal pro bono bank gives in-house lawyers at ITV the opportunity to take part in Lovells’ pro bono work. ...
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Bar Council accuses CPS of ‘Alice in Wonderland accounting’
The Bar Council accused the Crown Prosecution Service of ‘Alice in Wonderland accounting’ this week over the CPS’s claim to have saved millions using its own lawyers rather than external advocates. In its 2007/08 annual report, the CPS said it had saved £17.1m ...
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Claims management market booms with 60% rise in number of firms
The number of businesses entering the claims management market has risen by 60% in the past year, new figures show, while the industry’s regulator said solicitors were responsible for malpractice in personal injury claims-handling. The Claims Management Regulator’s 2009 impact assessment revealed that 2,885 businesses were ...
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Legal Services Commission asks crime lawyers to join assessment pilot
The Legal Services Commission has called for more criminal lawyers to take part in its scheme to test different methods of assessing advocacy, after too few practitioners signed up. Piloting of the Quality Assurance for Advocates (QAA) scheme began in February at Crown courts in Birmingham, ...
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SOCA ignores call to give lawyers feedback on money laundering reports
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) intends to reject a recommendation that it should provide solicitors and other professionals with feedback when they make suspicious activity reports (SARs), the Gazette has learned. A House of Lords committee last week asked SOCA to provide ‘increased levels of ...
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Miners’ MP seeks probe into compensation payouts
The new chair of the All-Party Coalfield Communities Group has called on the government to investigate whether wide variations in compensation paid to injured miners may be explained at least in part by bad advice from solicitors.
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Solicitors hit by HSBC bank charges on client accounts
HSBC, the world’s biggest bank, has taken a ‘commercial decision’ to introduce extra charges for solicitors which could add thousands of pounds to law firms’ banking bills, the Gazette has learned. The new policy, which applies specifically to solicitors, comes despite the fact that most client ...