Last 3 months headlines – Page 1173
-
News
Support our Turkish colleagues
‘The history of lawyers is the history of society in general.’ That’s my theory anyway, and it can be tested by tracing a country’s trends from what is happening to its lawyers. The ethics-lite market fundamentalism visited upon our profession is a mirror of the country’s history during the Thatcher-Blair ...
-
News
Out and about with MW
Obiter recalls when you weren’t allowed to see an advert for a solicitor – in Croydon these days you can’t move for one. South-east full-service firm McMillan Williams has agreed a sponsorship deal to put its logo on every public transport vehicle in town. ...
-
News
CMS students shape up
To CMS Cameron McKenna, where pupils and students had started the day with entrepreneur James Caan and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg as part of the ‘Opening Doors’ social mobility campaign, before going on to a publisher and a bank.
-
News
Thousands take up arms over cuts
The fight against the government’s Transforming Legal Aid reforms heated up last week as a consultation on the proposals closed with more than 13,000 responses understood to have been lodged with the Ministry of Justice. Although the ministry could not confirm the figure, this would ...
-
News
Memory lane
The Law Society’s Gazette, June 1963Criminal legal aid The interim report on legal aid in criminal appeals published recently by ‘Justice’ was followed almost immediately by the final report of the working party on legal aid in criminal proceedings. Both reports describe the existing facilities quite ...
-
News
Former solicitor convicted in £20m fraud case
A former solicitor was among five people convicted in a £20m mortgage fraud at Mold Crown Court last week. Nicholas John Jones, 53, who at the time worked at Ravencourt Legal Services in Flint, was convicted along with two property speculators, a surveyor and a financial ...
-
News
Coming soon – fixed defendant costs in PI
At the end of July, the current protocol for low-value road traffic accident claims will be extended to claims worth up to £25,000, and new protocols will be introduced for employers’ and public liability personal injury claims – draft copies of which have been published. New fixed recoverable fees for ...
-
News
SRA approves first barrister-led ABS
A London chambers specialising in immigration law has become the first barrister-led practice to apply successfully for ABS status. The Solicitors Regulation Authority said Richmond Chambers was the first of its 152 alternative business structures to be headed by barristers. Although members ...
-
News
SRA puts a price on extra intervention levy
Each solicitor may have to pay an extra £23 a year in compensation fund contributions to pay for future interventions into failing firms. The Solicitors Regulation Authority has decided to use the compensation fund to meet the estimated £7m budget overspend on interventions this year, occasioned ...
-
News
Breach of contract
Licence agreement being made between publishing company (Bright Star) and defendant permitting defendant to re-package Reader's Digest book edition of 'Wildlife of Britain' Morse v Eaglemoss Publications Ltd: Chancery Division: 7 June 2013 ...
-
News
Data protection: one cheer for Grayling
Chris Grayling is right. Not, of course, over his plan to remove choice of representative from legal aid clients, which flies in the face of his government’s whole strategy for public services, let alone our sense of justice. Where the secretary of state is on the button is his offensive ...
-
News
Lord chief justice backs moves to protect vulnerable witnesses
New guidelines for prosecutions of child abuse cases to protect vulnerable witnesses were welcomed by the judiciary today – nearly a quarter of a century after they were first proposed. The lord chief justice, Lord Judge, said that he was delighted at the lord chancellor’s ...
-
News
Juniors ‘on £14 a day’ after legal aid cuts, MPs hear
Junior barristers will be paid as little as £14 a day – well below the minimum wage – under the government’s proposed criminal legal aid cuts, the House of Commons justice committee heard today.
-
News
Mass arrest of lawyers in Istanbul protests
The Law Society has condemned the mass arrest of more than 50 lawyers in Istanbul. The lawyers were taking part in a protest inside the Çağlayan Court, near Taksim Square, when they were arrested, detained and reportedly beaten by the police, the Society said. ...
-
News
Mass arrest of lawyers in Istanbul protests
The Law Society has condemned the mass arrest of more than 50 lawyers in Istanbul. The lawyers were taking part in a protest inside the Çağlayan Court, near Taksim Square, when they were arrested, detained and reportedly beaten by the police, the Society said. ...
-
News
Supreme Court allows appeal in Prest v Petrodel
A seven-strong Supreme Court has unanimously allowed an appeal by an oil tycoon’s former wife and ordered him to hand over assets held by his companies. In Prest v Petrodel Resources Limited & Others [2013] UKSC 34, the court, led by Lord Sumption (pictured), used trust ...
-
News
Retreat is not an option, says Legal Services Board
A hands-off approach to regulation is ‘not an option’ for the Legal Services Board, the embattled super-regulator has protested. In a statement on its role timed to coincide with the publication of its annual report, the board conceded that other regulators would prefer it to be ...
-
News
Exclusive: top judges compound Grayling’s PCT woes
Senior judges led by the lord chief justice and master of the rolls have weighed in to the fevered debate about Transforming Legal Aid by issuing their own sharply worded critique of the plans. The 10-strong Judicial Executive Board’s 25-page response to the consultation, seen by ...
-
News
30 high-impact firms in ‘serious financial difficulty’
More than 30 of the top 200 UK firms are in serious financial difficulty, the Solicitors Regulation Authority revealed today. The regulator is in what it calls ‘intense engagement’ with 160 firms at risk of failure, of which eight are in immediate danger. ...