All articles by John Hyde – Page 356
-
News
Society calls for tribunal fines to fund regulation
The Law Society has proposed that fines imposed at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal be used to fund regulation of the legal profession. Last week the Gazette revealed that almost half of the solicitors fined by the tribunal in recent years had avoided paying those fines in ...
-
News
Grayling flies flag for City law firms
Justice secretary Chris Grayling has announced a renewed drive to export the UK’s legal services as City firms fight to maintain healthy profit margins. Grayling used a speech last week to stress that London was as much as a legal centre as a financial one and ...
-
News
Cold-calling prosecutions planned
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is ready to prosecute up to a dozen more companies who carry out cold-calling and send spam text messages. This week the ICO fined a second company for unlawful marketing techniques to attract personal injury and payment protection insurance claimants. ...
-
News
Insurers turn guns on compensation payments
The insurance industry’s campaign for cutting the cost of personal injury claims will not end with the banning of referral fees and the reduction of lawyers’ fixed fees in RTA Portal cases, a leading figure in the insurance industry has indicated. James Dalton, head of ...
-
News
Poll predicts cull of north-west firms
Almost a fifth of law firm managing partners in north-west England are considering closing down their firm, according to a survey published today. The poll of 300 firm leaders by Liverpool firm O’Connors found the vast majority of respondents believed that planned changes to civil ...
-
News
Edmonds: single legal regulator ‘possible within three years’
Legal Services Board chairman David Edmonds said today that a single rolled-up regulator for solicitors and barristers could be created within three years. Edmonds (pictured) told the House of Commons justice committee that the current framework of multiple regulators for different areas of the legal profession ...
-
News
Prepare for the worst, SRA tells struggling firms
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has urged struggling firms to establish a contingency plan for insolvency, as the cost to the profession of interventions increases. The regulator has committed £2.2m to interventions in failed law firms in the first quarter of 2013 – almost £1m more than ...
-
News
Virtual firm takes ABS total past 100
A virtual law firm founded by the president of the Law Society has today been granted a licence to become an alternative business structure. Scott-Moncrieff & Associates (SCOMO), run by Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, was added to the list of more than 100 ABSs licensed by the Solicitors ...
-
News
250 jobs go as Lawyers2you becomes latest PI casualty
All 250 solicitors and employees of Midlands firm Blakemores, owner of the consumer brand Lawyers2you, were today told to clear their desks and go home after an intervention by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The innovative and fast-growing firm appears to be the latest casualty of a ...
-
News
SRA brings 650 actions for COLP and COFA failures
Enforcement action has started against almost 650 solicitors or firms that failed to complete their compliance officer nominations properly, the Solicitors Regulation Authority revealed today. Antony Townsend, chief executive of the SRA, said action was necessary after a ‘concerning and disappointing’ level of non-co-operation and ...
-
News
Half of all tribunal fines remain unpaid
Nearly half of the solicitors fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in recent years have avoided paying those fines in full, figures obtained by the Gazette reveal. Of 579 cases since 2008 in which such a penalty was imposed, the fine has yet to be ...
-
News
No ‘stay of execution’ from banks for PI firms
Personal injury firms will struggle to convince banks that they are viable when fees are slashed next month, an insolvency expert has warned. Practices across the country have begun making redundancies ahead of fixed recoverable costs being cut by 60% at the end of April, the ...
-
News
UK is best for litigation, says justice secretary
Justice secretary Chris Grayling has sent a message to the world that the UK is cheaper, quicker and more reliable for litigation disputes. Grayling gave a keynote speech at the UK headquarters of Allen & Overy yesterday to stress his commitment to exporting legal services abroad. ...
-
News
Judge warns claimant firm on costs ‘manipulation’
A judge has warned law firms that courts will not tolerate attempts to change court orders for their own advantage. Mr Justice Edwards-Stuart told claimant firm Rosling King last week that it was verging on ‘contumelious’ [insulting] to produce a draft that its clients would prefer ...
-
News
SRA commits millions to interventions
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has already used 10% of its entire annual budget intervening in failed firms in 2013, the organisation revealed today.
-
News
Society unveils consulting service
The Law Society today unveiled a new consulting service for members to support work to meet their regulatory requirements. The service aims to provide clarity and reassurance to law firms and in particular to offer guidance to newly-appointed compliance officers. ...
-
News
Financial crisis will cost everyone in the end
Journalists are far too willing to bandy the term ‘crisis’ around, using it to label everything from a few cancelled trains to an Arsenal defeat. But how else to describe the impending financial troubles about to hit the legal profession? I say profession quite deliberately. So ...
-
News
Independent review of ‘pre-pack’ deals
The government has announced an independent review of the controversial insolvency vehicle through which DWF recently acquired the collapsed Cobbetts while leaving creditors likely to recoup little or nothing of what they are owed. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said the review into ...
-
News
Mid Staffs negligence ‘explosion’ predicted
NHS hospitals must brace themselves for an ‘explosion’ in medical negligence claims in the aftermath of the report into the Mid Staffordshire scandal, a leading lawyer in the sector has said. Tim Gorman, partner at clinical negligence firm Axiclaim, said last month’s publication of the Francis ...
-
News
MPs set to shed light on whiplash
MPs will answer whether the government is right to describe the UK as the ‘whiplash capital of the world’ in a definitive report on motor claims. The Commons Transport Select Committee today outlined the terms of reference for its inquiry into whiplash and called for evidence ...