Last 3 months headlines – Page 1530
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AWS extends awards deadline
The deadline for entering the Association of Women Solicitors awards 2010 has been extended by one week to Friday 23 July. The seven categories are: best woman solicitor retaining and developing legal talent; and best woman solicitor managing a large practice, medium-sized practice, small practice, legal aid practice, probate ...
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Legal brands ‘missing out’ on social media
Top legal brands are missing out on ‘vital’ customer interaction by failing to set up social networking sites, according to research seen exclusively by the Gazette. A report on the legal sector by internet consultants Greenlight said that many of the most visible legal websites do ...
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Boom times for serial litigants
Employment law is a nice little earner for serial litigants like Mr X, who has brought 91 cases to the employment tribunal since 1996. He and others like him blackmail employers. They cheat taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of pounds and clog up the courts. And nobody in authority, ...
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European Commission seeks to increase client account protection
The European Commission has scuppered plans by the Financial Services Authority to vastly improve protection for client money held in solicitors’ bank accounts. The commission has announced that it wants to increase to €100,000 (£83,200) the maximum level of compensation available for deposits that are lost ...
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DLA profits hit by Middle East losses
National firm DLA Piper today reported partner profits down 18%, and blamed the fall on losses incurred by its hard-hit Middle East practice. For the year ending 31 December 2009, revenues at the firm fell to £581m from £585m in 2008, while average profits per equity ...
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EU language war sparked by patents proposal
The other side of the coin of the EU’s welcome inclusiveness and multilingualism is that some things are made worse by it.
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MoJ axes training grants for legal aid
The Ministry of Justice has axed a grant scheme that helped fund the training of the next generation of legal aid solicitors because there are ‘too many lawyers’ conducting legal aid work. Legal aid minister Jonathan Djanogly said the government would save £2.6m a year by ...
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Circuit judge resigns over male prostitute allegations
A circuit judge has resigned after losing an appeal against a decision to remove him from office following allegations over his private life. Gerald Price QC, a judge on the Wales circuit, was the subject of media reports that he had had a relationship with a ...
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Barristers seek partnership with solicitors
Some 43% of barristers would like to go into business with solicitors, research commissioned by bar regulator the Bar Standards Board has shown today. A YouGov survey of nearly 2,000 barristers and 141 clerks and practice managers revealed that 43% said they would be interested in ...
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What are the government’s real plans for the financial regulators?
After the big bang, the silence. George Osborne may have wowed the City with his promise to smash the Financial Services Authority (FSA) at Mansion House a couple of weeks ago, but what on earth have we leant since then about our new financial regulators?
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Scrapping HIPs has little impact on property market
The scrapping of home information packs (HIPs) has had only a ‘marginal’ impact on the beleaguered property market, solicitors said this week, as they predicted that the market will remain slow for the rest of the year. Communities secretary Eric Pickles, who axed the controversial sellers’ ...
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MoJ to publish draft Defamation Bill
The Ministry of Justice has announced it will publish a draft Defamation Bill for consultation in the new year, with a view to introducing a bill in the next parliamentary session. Justice minister Lord McNally outlined the government’s plans to review the law on defamation to ...
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Is social networking really appropriate for lawyers?
Here are some of the typical comments we hear as we talk to lawyers and their in-house marketing teams: I’m not sure about all this hype around social media. I'm not sure if social networking has any relevance to a law firm. I can see that more and more business ...
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Annual immigration cap could harm legal sector
Government plans to impose a permanent annual cap on non-EU nationals entering the UK labour market could have a ‘significant detrimental impact’ on the legal sector, the Law Society has warned. Home secretary Theresa May has announced a consultation process ahead of a permanent annual cap ...
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Outcomes-focused regulation: what your firm needs to build
The SRA has now completed the first stage of its programme of roadshows leading to the introduction of outcomes-focused regulation and alternative business structures in October 2011. The launch in London on 25 May was followed by well-attended events in Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, Exeter, Cambridge, Newcastle, Cardiff, Liverpool and Manchester.
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Europe's most prominent guardians of human rights
Step into the entrance foyer of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg and you could be in a sports centre in Milton Keynes on a quiet morning. The glass, tubular steel and spiral staircases lack gravitas. There are no gowned briefs or clients in evidence. The place ...
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Civil Procedure Rules 2009 - update
The second set of amendments to the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) for 2009 were contained within the Civil Procedure (Amendment No2) Rules 2009 (SI 2009/3390) and the much longer update 51 which effected changes to the CPR Practice Directions. Unless otherwise stated, the changes were effective from 6 April 2010. ...
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A place for sharia
I work in an area where there is a large Muslim population. I think that sharia law may, in some circumstances, have a role to play, providing: all the parties agree; there is no attempt to replace English law with sharia law; and representatives are given a seat at the ...
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Truth about CFAs
I was interested to see from your piece last week, ‘Urgent action’ demanded on CFA ‘scandal’ (see news), that Steven Heffer had written to the justice secretary Kenneth Clarke QC on behalf of Lawyers for Media Standards to voice its concerns about the proposal to reduce the maximum success fee ...
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Too old for the legal profession?
After selling my practice a few years ago I elected to work nine months a year on locum assignments and consultancy work for solicitors buying, selling or merging their firms. All went brilliantly for two years. Then the recession came and work dried up. Two years ...