Last 3 months headlines – Page 1310
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Employment bill to set existing changes in legislation
The Enterprise & Regulatory Reform Bill announced in the Queen’s speech includes plans to overhaul the employment tribunal system and transform the resolution landscape.
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Cautious welcome for Children and Families Bill
Legislation heralded in the Queen’s speech to reduce delays in the family justice system needs to be matched with the resources to make it a reality, family lawyers have warned. Lawyers broadly welcomed the announcement of a Children and Families Bill, but cautioned that its measures ...
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Crime and Courts Bill to create single county court system
The government has confirmed in the Queen’s speech that it will enact proposals for a single county court system in England and Wales. The move was mooted in March amongst a raft of other proposals following the report of a consultation into solving disputes in the ...
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How the new EU cookie law affects law firms
Most websites nowadays use ‘cookies’ (as I will explain) and the European Union has passed a law which means we all have to take action. Your clients need to take action, but so do you, as your firm has a website too. What are cookies? They ...
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TLT creates UK-wide practice
National firm TLT has announced plans to launch operations in Scotland and Northern Ireland to create a UK-wide practice. The firm has merged with Scottish practice Anderson Fyfe to create TLT Scotland, with the deal expected to be confirmed on 1 July. ...
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Spectator to face contempt charge over Lawrence trial article
The Crown Prosecution Service is to prosecute The Spectator magazine over an opinion column published during the Stephen Lawrence murder trial last year. The notice to prosecute is the first since the CPS published guidelines that called for prosecutors to assess whether the public interest outweighed ...
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LLPs 10 years on
In fact, limited liability partnerships (LLPs) have been with us for just over 11 years since their introduction in April 2001. Although it was possible to operate a law firm as a limited company prior to 2001, an LLP has been viewed as a more obvious alternative to a traditional ...
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Solicitors lose probate market share
The profession’s share of the probate market has dipped sharply, with solicitors and companies providing probate services last year receiving just 44% of all probate grants issued, according to figures published today. The 2011 data from the Probate Service, a division of HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS), reveals that ...
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Riverview barristers offer fixed-price divorces to wealthy
An innovative legal practice today launched a barrister-led fixed-price divorce service to cut costs for wealthy couples.
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London courts to scale back for Olympics
Courts near Olympics venues and traffic hotspots will significantly cut their sittings from 27 July to 12 August, HM Courts and Tribunals Service said today. Officials are concerned that jurors and witnesses will be unable to attend hearings during a period when hundreds of thousands ...
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Strikes and work to rule will hit courts from Thursday
Hundreds of court staff will refuse overtime until August as the public sector pensions row threatens to create a backlog in the court service. Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union are due to walk out on Thursday for a one-day strike over cuts to ...
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The coalition’s tin ear problem
Today sees prime minister David Cameron and his Lib Dem deputy Nick Clegg ‘relaunch’ the coalition. It’s hard to imagine most lawyers being anything other than sceptical about this exercise, for reasons I’ll come to below. I probably have more time for politicians than most, ...
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Legal aid equality a myth, says solicitor advocate Kelcey
Criminal firms should make it clear to legal aid clients how their publicly funded status affects the service they get, according to a leading solicitor advocate. Ian Kelcey, senior partner at Bristol firm Kelcey & Hall and Law Society council member said: ‘It’s a myth that ...
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Legal aid now underpinned by international principles
There was a welcome development on legal aid this week, from of all places the United Nations. Legal aid is of course something usually dealt with at national level, and there are wide divergences in national treatment and national expenditure.
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‘Ludicrous, immoral and wicked’: Bach bites back at LASPO
Lord (Willy) Bach, the peer who led Labour’s opposition to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill in the House of Lords, stepped down last week as shadow legal aid minister, a couple of days before the measure received royal assent to become an act. ...
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Beware of identity thieves, SRA warns
Law firms could be held liable for losses caused by a fraudster stealing their identity even when they are innocent victims, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned. New guidance published today warns the profession on how to guard against falling victim to fraudsters. The regulator ...
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Disclosure
Confidential information - Injunction against disclosure of information - Interim injunction BUQ v HRE: Queen's Bench Division (Mr Justice Tugendhat): 29 March 2012 The Queen's Bench Division allowed the defendant's ...
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Employment
Discrimination - Sex discrimination Hawkins v Atex Group Ltd and others: Employment Appeal Tribunal (Mr Justice Underhill): 13 March 2012 The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed the employee's appeal against the ...
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We need to make Ombudsman scheme fairer
Five years on from the arrival of the 2007 Legal Services Act we are still waiting for the ‘Big Bang’. What has come into existence seems less an entirely new universe, with a primordial cloud of traditional legal service providers accelerating away, transforming into clusters of one-stop-shop commercial enterprise (as ...