All articles by James Dean – Page 24
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News
Solicitors in referral tie-up with IFAs
Solicitors and independent financial advisers (IFAs) have entered into a nationwide tie-up to take advantage of the relaxation of the rules on partnerships between lawyers and non-lawyers. Some 600 law firm members of the 360 Legal Group will be given access to 1,700 IFA members of ...
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Swiss legal professional privilege plea for foreign in-house lawyers
Europe’s largest association of corporate general counsel has asked the Swiss government to bolster legal professional privilege for foreign in-house lawyers working in the country. The call comes after the Swiss government put forward a draft bill to grant resident corporate counsel a right to legal professional privilege – a ...
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CFS panel cull deferred pending talks
The Law Society has secured a two-week stay of execution for sole practitioners in a ‘first round’ of negotiations over the decision to axe 3,600 practitioners from the conveyancing panel of the newly merged Britannia and Co-operative Financial Services (CFS). Sole practitioners will remain on the ...
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City firms reject panel pitch offers due to billing terms
City firms are hitting back at increasingly aggressive cost-cutting by their corporate clients by rejecting offers of panel pitches or putting in pitches that they know are destined to fail, the Gazette has learned. Senior lawyers from the magic circle down to mid-tier commercial firms told ...
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Solicitors hand back £1.5m to miners under voluntary scheme
Solicitors have handed back more than £1.5m to injured former miners under a new voluntary repayment scheme after wrongly deducting fees from miners’ government compensation awards – and this figure could rise further as the project rolls on, the Gazette can reveal.
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News
Deals delight but the recession isn't over yet
Boom! Bang! We’re a week away from the one-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, and the big guns are beginning to fire again in quick succession. In the space of just two days, we have a huge deal announced in the food sector (Kraft trying and failing to buy ...
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Solicitors sign referral deal with financial advisers
Solicitors and independent financial advisers (IFAs) have entered into a nationwide tie-up in order to benefit from the relaxation of the rules on partnerships between lawyers and non-lawyers. Some 600 law firm members of the 360 Legal Group will be given access to 1,700 IFA members ...
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News
Firms seek emergency loans to pay for high indemnity premiums
Cash-strapped law firms are seeking emergency loans to pay for hiked professional indemnity insurance (PII) premiums, amid claims that many insurers are tightening their payment terms. Independent finance providers Syscap and Key Business Professions (KBP) have reported a recent surge in the number of firms asking ...
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News
Firms call for ‘safe harbour’ to strike early investment deals
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has rejected calls to create a ‘safe harbour’ for law firms to strike formal investment deals ahead of full implementation of the Legal Services Act 2007 reforms. The news came as the Gazette learned that a number of commercial law firms have taken the first major ...
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News
Guide launched to help solicitors buy indemnity cover
The main representative bodies from the legal and insurance worlds today launched a guide to help solicitors buy professional indemnity insurance (PII) cover. The guide, put together by the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA), the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and the Law Society, offers guidance ...
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News
Small firms suffer as PI premiums soar
Solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance (PII) premiums have shot up by 50% in a handful of cases as early reports suggest that the renewals season is already proving difficult for small law firms. PII brokers and experts said that some small firms seeking early renewals have already ...
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News
A change of tack from the SRA?
The England cricket team today begin their quest for victory in the fifth and final test match of this year’s Ashes series, fronting a new-look lineup and a big gamble in the form of Warwickshire right-hander Jonathan Trott. Earning his first cap for England, Trott joins some other new faces: ...
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More job cuts at Burges Salmon
South-west firm Burges Salmon is to axe up to four property lawyers and up to 27 support staff in its second redundancy round of the year. The firm said that redundancy pay will be ‘more generous’ than the statutory minimum. In March, Burges Salmon let 18 ...
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PII boost for small firms as XL enters market
Sole practitioners and small law firms have received a boost ahead of the professional indemnity insurance (PII) renewals season, with news that insurance giant XL will provide them with cover. As revealed by the Gazette last week, XL, a new entrant to the solicitors’ PII market, ...
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News
Advice for Life charity faced pressure from LSC before closure
Advice for Life, the collapsed parent charity of East Anglia’s two law centres, was struggling to repay funds to the Legal Services Commission before it went bust, it has emerged. Advice for Life’s closure caused Cambridge Law Centre and Huntingdon Law Centre to close for good at the end of ...
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News
Building society hit by £41m mortgage fraud
Solicitors and other professionals have been implicated in £41m of mortgage fraud which plunged the mutual Chelsea Building Society deep into the red in the first half, it emerged today. In its interim accounts Chelsea said that the mortgage fraud, perpetrated between 2006 and 2008, involved ...
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News
Estate agencies charging 50% more for HIPs
Home information packs (HIPs) purchased from estate agents can cost 50% more than those bought directly from specialist HIP providers such as law firms and conveyancing practices, new research indicates. On average, HIPs from estate agents cost about £110 more than HIPs from specialist providers, according ...
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News
The FSA: watching the watchdog
I remember seeing a straggly white-haired academic type vent his spleen on the Financial Services Authority on BBC News a few months ago. The man, an American economist, was energetic in delivering his verdict on how the UK’s City regulator and the Securities and Exchange Commission, its American brother, had ...
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News
Miners win negligence payouts from solicitors over coal health claims
Injured miners who successfully sued their former solicitors for under-settling coal health compensation claims have won tens of thousands of pounds in settlements, it has emerged. Documents obtained by the Gazette from a law firm that has handled miners’ negligence cases show that a small ...
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News
Legal Services Board seeks powers to impose huge fines on regulators
The Legal Services Board could punish the Law Society and other regulators with multi-million-pound fines if they fail to meet its regulatory objectives, under proposals published this week. The plans, which would give the LSB powers to fine the Law Society up to £28m for non-compliance, ...