Last 3 months headlines – Page 1522
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OFT seeking costs analysis over will regulation
The Office of Fair Trading is not opposed to will-writing becoming a reserved activity, but is seeking a costs benefit assessment before there is any extension of regulation in the field, it has told the Legal Services Board. Speaking at a recent LSB seminar on the ...
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Why civil partnerships for heterosexual couples could be a good idea
The Gazette reported last week that there has been a surge in cohabitiation cases as a result of the recession.
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Are KPIs useful when managing lawyers?
In my last blog on the role of coaching in law firms, I argued that a coaching style of management was appropriate when managing lawyers, most especially those who are senior and experienced. The blog attracted comments making the fair point that we should ensure we have the ‘right’ people ...
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Firm oversteps ABS rules in outsourcing deal
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has found that Bradford, Glasgow and Newcastle firm Optima Legal overstepped the rules on alternative business structures (ABSs) in an arrangement with outsourcer Capita. Publishing an investigation into the agreement, the SRA said that ‘while Optima Legal’s original outsourcing and funding arrangements ...
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Teaching in Tanzania
Professor David Higham describes his experience of teaching in East Africa with the International Lawyers Project ‘It’s blackboard and chalk; and bring your own chalk.’ With those words, the briefing meeting at Norton Rose’s riverside offices started. For a dyed-in the-wool PowerPoint® trainer like me, ...
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MoJ to slash £2bn from its budget
The Ministry of Justice will slash £2bn from its £9bn budget in order to meet government spending targets, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has claimed. Citing a letter understood to have been circulated to MoJ senior staff today, the PCS estimated that around 15,000 ...
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The Human Rights Act at war
Helen Grimberg and Mike Brown assess the impact of a recent Supreme Court decision on the right of soldiers to sue for damages when they are injured during foreign combat ...
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Legal professional privilege is under attack again
I have a message for democratic governments everywhere (please forgive the self-importance): stop interfering with legal professional privilege. I think that they used to, by and large, leave alone this cornerstone of the definition of the legal profession – and, of course, cornerstone of a citizen’s fundamental rights, which is ...
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Scrapping personal search fee will ‘benefit no one’, warn conveyancers
The government’s decision to scrap the fee for personal searches of the local land charges register will benefit no one and will add to the financial pressure on local government, lawyers have warned. Housing minister Grant Shapps announced last week that the government will abolish the ...
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Research shows ‘incompetence’ in will-writing
Two-thirds of trust and estate practitioners have encountered ‘incompetence or dishonesty’ in the will-writing market in the past year, according to research published today. The study has prompted the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), which conducted the survey, to renew its calls for better ...
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Law Society calls for suspension of family tender result
The Law Society has called on the Legal Services Commission to suspend the implementation of the family legal aid tender round in a letter to its chief executive Carolyn Downs. Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson said ‘the public interest demands’ that the tender round should ...
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Family judges alarmed over legal aid tender
The head of the family courts has warned the Legal Services Commission that he has been ‘inundated’ by family judges expressing serious concerns over the outcome of the family legal aid tender, in a letter seen by the Gazette. Lord Justice Wall has written to the ...
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Lawyers see 'explosion' in cohabitation cases
The recession has caused an ‘explosion’ in the number of cohabiting couples seeking advice on relationship breakdown, according to family lawyers who have called for the ‘complex’ laws applied to them to be updated. Vanessa Lloyd Platt, founder of London firm Lloyd Platt & Co, said: ...
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Act fast to avoid PII misery
It’s not a sexy subject, and it’s not particularly fun to write a stream of gloomy reports on it, but solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance (PII) is a hot topic for the profession. We are exactly eight weeks from the 1 October renewals deadline and there is already plenty to ponder.
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LSB approves £428 practising certificate fee
The Legal Services Board has approved the level of the individual practising fee at £428 per solicitor for 2010/11. Solicitors, recognised European lawyers and recognised foreign lawyers (RFL) will pay the individual fee, while their firms will also pay a firm-based fee, which will be calculated ...
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Criminal procedure
Change of plea – Postal pleas – Right to change plea after hearing Michael John Rymer v Director of Public Prosecutions: DC (Lord Justice Hooper, Mr Justice Rafferty): 21 July 2010 ...
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Human rights
Duty to undertake effective investigation – Inhuman or degrading treatment – Iraq Ali Zaki Mousa & Ors (claimants) v Secretary of State for Defence (defendant) & Legal Services Commission (interested party): DC (Sir Anthony May (President QB), Mr Justice ...
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Public health – back to the future
We humans are a discontented lot, constantly seeking release from the imprisonment of the present. Fashions ebb and flow; and if you wait long enough, what was already obsolete yesterday will surely become today’s ‘must-have’. Thus, as Shakespeare’s clown in Twelfth Night would have it, ‘... the whirligig of time ...
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No choice for mental health clients
The letter from Hugh Barrett of the Legal Services Commission refers to the allocation of new matter starts according to ‘client demand’. He implies that the LSC are responding to client needs rather than the interests of solicitors. A clever approach but misleading.
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Memory Lane
Law Society’s Gazette, July 1980 Legal confidentiality and the press Home secretary Theresa May appeared to signal the ...