Last 3 months headlines – Page 1307
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Stobart offers pay-as-you-go barristers - but no plans to be ABS
The logistics company known for its distinctive Eddie Stobart lorries has launched a legal service to help the public cut the cost of legal disputes by linking clients directly with barristers without the need for a solicitor.
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Stobart Barristers: did the legal earth just get flatter?
Legal services liberalisation has been a phoney war, but I think that ends with today’s news that logistics company Stobart Group is entering the market with the launch of Stobart Barristers. For sections of the bar, it makes the ProcureCo model look like Betamax to the green and yellow giant’s ...
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CoA judge raps defendant for spurning mediation
A Court of Appeal judge has criticised a defendant for rejecting mediation offered at a previous hearing - warning it will be a costly decision. Lord Justice Longmore said it was a ‘great pity’ that appliance supplier Indesit, instructed by Plexus Solicitors, had not pursued the ...
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HSBC deal ends conveyancing panel dispute
Hundreds more firms will be able to work for HSBC mortgage clients and the bank after the lender agreed this week to expand its conveyancing panel to include all firms with the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) mark. The deal, announced today, follows a four-month campaign by the Law ...
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Is economics useless?
Is economics any use? That sounds like the start of a rant/ a joke/ or a quip in an after-dinner speech (all the easier to make as many economies, presumably advised by fine economic minds, struggle to recover and grow). So let me be more ...
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Trainee minimum wage to go
Regulators have voted to scrap the trainee solicitor minimum wage 30 years after it was first introduced. The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority made the decision to deregulate the salary immediately at its meeting today. The decision comes after a five-month ...
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SRA opts for national minimum wage for trainees
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 immediately at its meeting today. The tailored solicitor minimum salary will be ...
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Trainee minimum to be abolished in two years
Regulators have voted to scrap the trainee solicitor minimum wage 30 years after it was first introduced. The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority made the decision to deregulate the salary at its meeting today. Full deregulation will be deferred for two years to minimise the ...
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Trainee minimum to stay, SRA board rules
Regulators have voted to retain the trainee solicitor minimum wage 30 years after it was first introduced. The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority made the decision to ignore calls for deregulation at its meeting today. The decision comes after a five-month consultation with the profession ...
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Wasted costs order over e-disclosure failures
When assessing litigation costs, the expense of collecting, analysing and reviewing information is a key consideration. Only by ensuring that these processes are completed accurately and efficiently can the cost of e-disclosure be effectively managed.
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VAT breaks and nepotism on menu as French lawyers seek reform
The newly elected president of France could scrap VAT on legal fees for certain consumers and abolish a ‘nepotistic’ decree passed by the previous administration, the president of the Paris bar has told the Gazette. Christiane Feral-Schuhl, in London to visit the Law Society, also told ...
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SRA sells out aspiring trainees
Forget all the corporate blather about ‘partial deregulation’ - today the Solicitors Regulation Authority board chose to dump the minimum salary for trainee solicitors. It was a gutless, thoughtless and morally reprehensible decision, taken on flimsy grounds and with little or no debate. In passing on ...
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SRA in new compliance deadline setback
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is set to push back the date for approving compliance officers by two months. The SRA Board will vote tomorrow on extending the grace period for approving the new appointments to 31 December. As recently as last weekend, SRA chief executive Antony ...
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Members of the legal profession should support Occupy
by Melanie Strickland, a solicitor and Occupy Law UK We are all aware that our economic system brings misery, exploitation and death to a large number of people and other living beings.
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Complying with AML rules ‘upholds the profession’, symposium told
Transactional lawyers were reminded of the importance of complying with anti-money laundering regulations in order to ‘uphold the profession’.
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Pecking at lawyers
Displacement activity takes place when animals or humans are faced with a crisis and don’t know how to react. Apparently, birds peck at grass when uncertain whether to attack or flee from an opponent. So it is with governments, too. Confronted by an unprecedented crisis, they haven’t a clue what ...
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Fees on way back down to earth
Speaking at the Association of Costs Lawyers’ annual conference last week, the master of the rolls Lord Neuberger expressed great confidence that a combination of the Jackson reforms, alternative business structures and client demand for fixed fees will mean that lawyer’s fees are almost certain to come down.
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HSBC campaign targets bank’s AGM
Solicitors with HSBC shares have indicated that they will attend the bank’s annual general meeting next week to voice concerns over its conveyancing panel policy. The Law Society has set up an email address for solicitors considering attending so that they can be kept up to date with the Society’s ...
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Prepare for 50% fee cuts, says ‘end of lawyers’ professor
Rapid change in the legal profession threatens everyone from in-house lawyers to large City firms, according to IT consultant Professor Richard Susskind. The former IT adviser to the lord chief justice told the Law Society Management Conference last week that the economic climate will force clients to seek out these ...
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Justice and Security Bill faces a rough ride
The Justice & Security Bill is to allow the courts, through the ‘limited use of closed proceedings’, to consider all material relating to a case without needing to disclose information that could risk national security. The government says its purpose is to ‘respond to the challenge ...