Last 3 months headlines – Page 1172
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Alternative to PCT
If Mr Grayling wants a ‘stunning’ alternative to price-competitive tendering, then why not: Charge and collect fees at all levels of legal aid, police stations and criminal courts (including court duty solicitors) on the basis of a contribution proportionate ...
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Consumer help
The chair of the Legal Services Board, David Edmonds, has written to all approved regulators urging them to do more to help consumers play a ‘more active, empowered role’ in the legal services market, by providing clear ‘performance information’. It is not appropriate for regulatory bodies ...
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Consumer help
The chair of the Legal Services Board, David Edmonds, has written to all approved regulators urging them to do more to help consumers play a ‘more active, empowered role’ in the legal services market, by providing clear ‘performance information’. It is not appropriate for regulatory bodies ...
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RTA ‘industry’
No, Mr Torr, you are wrong. I have received many telephone calls telling me that I have been involved in an accident and offering to give me advice, when there has been no accident at all. I have certainly never ticked a box on a survey that is at all ...
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Professions and industrial workers - vital distinction
It is not just a question of ‘what’s in a name’. There is a real ethical difference between professionals and industrial workers. If society does not recognise this or we, as professionals, do not defend this difference, we are in danger of sliding behind the doors of a Stalinist state.
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Criminal limit concerns
Like, I suspect, a number of my professional colleagues, I have grave concerns about the sudden emergence of historical sex crimes following the well-publicised Operation Yewtree, set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
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Abu Qatada treaty a triumph for human rights
Omar Othman or Abu Qatada (‘The Palestinian’) is destined to hit the headlines at least a couple more times. Once will be when the Jordanian parliament ratifies a newly negotiated mutual legal assistance treaty with the UK (said to be imminent). And then again when he departs of his own ...
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Crackdown on political lobbyists under fire
The legal profession has warned the government it is fixing its sights on the wrong target with plans for a register of political lobbyists. Downing Street confirmed last week that it wants to create a statutory register, with legislation published within six weeks, following allegations involving ...
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Lawyers sign up to pay workers a living wage
Lawyers are setting the standard for private employers in having more firms committed to paying workers an independently assessed ‘living wage’ than any other business sector. However, it has also emerged that solicitor practices were among hundreds of rogue employers recently penalised for not paying ...
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Backing for single PII scheme
A single professional indemnity insurance scheme and compensation scheme could cover the entire legal services sector, if a consumer watchdog proposal becomes reality. In a report published today on legal regulators’ financial protection schemes, the Legal Services Consumer Panel says that a single scheme would allow ...
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Victim review will be ‘costly and time-consuming’
Granting victims an automatic right to review Crown Prosecution Service decisions will be ‘costly, time-consuming and add little to the current process’, a prominent solicitor has claimed. Director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer last week announced plans to allow victims and bereaved relatives to review any ...
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New potential market in aviation claims
Law firms have a potential market of as many as one million claimants who may be eligible for compensation for delayed flights, it has been suggested. Personal injury specialist Bott & Co said this week it has recovered €300,000 for 600 clients in the 100 days ...
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The legal profession is on the banks of a Rubicon
This column occasionally quotes Yes Minister, with the excuse that the now antique sitcom is more educational than any politics degree. In The Writing on the Wall, mandarin perm sec Sir Humphrey Appleby advises Jim Hacker of one crackpot policy: ‘Minister, if you are going to do this damn silly ...
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NHS cuts do not help - but often clients just want answers
by Mehmooda Duke, managing director of medical negligence lawyers Moosa-Duke I have believed for years that there must be a correlation between government spending on the NHS and the number of medical negligence cases brought against it.
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SRA takes over 16 months to approve ABS
The Solicitors Regulation Authority took a record 16 months and 26 days to process the alternative business structure application of personal injury firm Minster Law, it has emerged. Outgoing Minster chairman Adrian Christmas told the Gazette that he applied to gain ABS status on 3 January ...
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Reformation relics fetch £900k for Law Society
The Law Society has raised more than £900,000 from the sale of anti-Catholic polemical and associated artefacts bequeathed to it in the 19th century. The Mendham Collection, assembled by Anglican clergyman Joseph Mendham (1769-1856), contained mostly 15th and 16th century books relating to the Reformation. Items ...
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An advocate and an avocado
No barricades ablaze at the ‘Save Legal Aid’ demo outside the Ministry of Justice last Tuesday, even if the road was entirely blocked by protesters. But Obiter noticed that lawyers are getting more accustomed to the etiquette of protest. Invited by a megaphone firebrand to ‘not be so polite’, at ...
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IT firm offers route round referral fee ban
A legal technology firm is promoting a business plan which it says will allow solicitors to continue working with personal injury referrers. The company, Epoq, has created LegalGo, a free assistance plan that claims management companies distribute to claimants. The CMC signs ...
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Firms braced for spending squeeze
Top-100 law firms face a squeeze in client legal spending over the next 12 months, because almost all corporate clients who have not yet reviewed instructions and spend plan to do so. The result will be massive consolidation among the magic circle’s chasing pack, according ...
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Small claims track
The likelihood is that the majority of litigators have never ventured down into the basement of the county court where retailers and their embittered customers, and landlords and their carpet-staining former tenants scream out their stories and storm out if they lose. This is the basement which hosts small claims, ...