All articles by John Hyde – Page 346

  • News

    Let’s stop car insurance blame game

    1 June 2012

    Once you’ve finished this article I urge you to buy the Highway Code. Then spend every waking hour reading it, just to avoid ever getting behind the wheel again.

  • News

    Plaid Cymru hails legal devolution

    31 May 2012

    Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader Elfyn Llwyd has insisted Wales can benefit from a separate legal jurisdiction - despite warnings it may harm the principality’s appeal to business. Llywd told the House of Commons last week that there would be legal and economic advantages to devolving the administration of justice. ...

  • News

    Insurers set for referral to competition watchdog over inflated premiums

    31 May 2012

    Insurance companies are taking advantage of the system to inflate premiums for drivers by £225m a year, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) reports today. The competition watchdog says that after a road traffic accident, insurers of the not-at-fault driver and others, such as brokers, ...

  • News

    Clarke plea on prisons population

    31 May 2012

    Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke has called for a ‘pause’ in prison population growth as the numbers creep closer to the UK’s operational capacity. At a hearing of the Commons Justice Committee last week Clarke described overcrowding in UK prisons as ‘one of the scourges of ...

  • News

    Red-tape bonfire plan for legal services bureaucracy

    31 May 2012

    The government will today invite the legal profession to identify business-restricting regulations, naming three ‘sector champions’ as intermediaries. In the legal services stage of prime minister David Cameron’s ‘red tape challenge’ the Ministry of Justice has pinpointed more than 150 regulations suitable for scrutiny. Lawyers will ...

  • News

    Quiz your broker on fees, Society urges firms

    30 May 2012

    The Law Society will today publish insurance guidance urging solicitors to exercise their rights and find out exactly what their broker is being paid. The 2012 PII Buyers’ Guide will help solicitors find out from their brokers all the fees and commissions they receive - as ...

  • News

    Former City partner gets three years for £1.3m fraud

    30 May 2012

    A former Hogan Lovells partner has been jailed for three years after defrauding his firm of £1.3m. Christopher Grierson (pictured) was sentenced today at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty in March to four charges of false accounting. Grierson, who was dismissed by his firm in ...

  • News

    Call to halt referral fee ‘auctions’

    28 May 2012

    A personal injury solicitor has accused insurance companies of ‘auctioning cases to the highest bidder’. John Spencer (pictured), director of Spencers Solicitors, said some insurers had conducted referral fee auctions amongst solicitors for bundles of cases. The price tag of these bundles was likely to be ...

  • News

    Eric Pickles, where are these Jubilee jobsworths?

    26 May 2012

    Next week the nation will unite to celebrate the fact that an elderly woman isn’t dead yet. The Queen will reach her Diamond Jubilee, and as punishment she’ll have to suffer thousands of idiot well-wishers, the BBC disappearing up her backside and a concert featuring Ed ...

  • News

    Don’t rush into fee change, PI lawyers warn government

    25 May 2012

    Personal injury lawyers have urged the government not to be rushed into radical changes to the low-value claims system. The government today closed its call for evidence and opinion on the future of the RTA Portal as it seeks to reduce the number of claims being ...

  • News

    Will-writing and property firms bring ABS total to seven

    25 May 2012

    Two niche firms specialising in will-writing and property respectively have become the latest two organisations to be accepted as alternative business structures (ABSs). Parchment Group, based in Buckinghamshire, and three-partner firm Plainlaw, based in Oxfordshire, had their applications confirmed this week by the Solicitors Regulation Authority ...

  • News

    Insolvency exemption in latest no win, no fee U-turn

    24 May 2012

    Insolvency cases will be exempt from no win, no fee reforms until April 2015, the government has revealed in its second climb-down in its struggle to overhaul the civil justice system. Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly said today that insolvency practitioners need longer to adjust to ...

  • News

    SRA defends trainee minimum salary cut

    24 May 2012

    Scrapping the trainee minimum salary will increase, rather than hinder, diversity in the profession, a senior regulator has insisted. Samantha Barrass, executive director of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, was speaking after SRA board members voted to deregulate the minimum salary at their meeting last week. Following ...

  • News

    No win, no fee climb down: a case of double standards

    24 May 2012

    Is the government losing its nerve on no win, no fee reforms? The overhaul of the civil justice system was supposed to have been rubber-stamped when the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act was given royal assent earlier this month.

  • News

    Regulators apply for ABS licence

    24 May 2012

    Two aspiring regulators of the legal profession this week detailed their plans to be approved to license alternative business structures. The Intellectual Property Regulation Board (IPReg) said it expects a decision from the Legal Services Board on its application within a year. The Institute of Chartered ...

  • News

    Judicial diversity must start with lawyers, says Goldring

    23 May 2012

    Senior judges will reach out to the legal profession by mentoring those who feel excluded from high office. Speaking at a conference yesterday, Senior Presiding Judge Lord Justice Goldring revealed members of the profession previously put off because of their gender, race or sexuality will be ...

  • News

    Social exclusivity ‘rife’ in profession

    22 May 2012

    Social exclusivity is increasing in the legal profession, according to a new analysis of lawyers’ schooling published today. Legal recruiter Laurence Simons studied almost 50,000 professionals working in London using the networking site LinkedIn. It found that more than 15% of lawyers - more than 7,000 ...

  • News

    Trainee minimum abolition ‘will hit women’

    21 May 2012

    Women will be disproportionately affected by the scrapping of the minimum salary for trainees, the Association of Women Solicitors (AWS) said today. The AWS has added its voice to mounting opposition to the decision taken last week by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. From August 2014, firms ...

  • News

    Trainee minimum dumped in 'partial deregulation'

    18 May 2012

    Regulators have voted to partially deregulate the trainee solicitor minimum wage 30 years after it was introduced. The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority made the decision to change the terms of the salary at its meeting today - with the change coming into effect in ...

  • News

    Sky targets new court filming rights

    17 May 2012

    A TV executive campaigning to lift the ban on cameras in criminal courts has said the limited rights announced in last week’s Queen’s speech will not end the battle for access. ‘We’re obviously interested in discussing what extras we can do down the road,’ Simon Bucks, associate editor at Sky ...