Last 3 months headlines – Page 1659
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Marking your card
The Home Office this week announced preferred suppliers of the first two big IT systems in its programme to create a national identity card. The contracts, which include a 10-year deal to create the national biometric information system, mark the first step towards making the card an everyday reality by ...
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Public recognition
The true source of Ken Gulati’s grief about public sector pay (see [2009] Gazette, Letters, 26 March, 11) is readily apparent from his own letter.
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Unfair punishment
Following an SRA spot check, the partners of my firm were advised of two minor infractions. More than six months later, and following a delay in the reissue of practising certificates, we were advised over the phone that we were to be reprimanded.
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Press intrusion
I read with horror your article and editorial in relation to the scheme to allow journalists access to family court proceedings.
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Criticism of CPS associate prosecutors is misplaced
Your correspondent Judith Mills (see [2009] Gazette, Letters, 26 March, 11) unfairly and inaccurately attacked the standard of Crown Prosecution Service associate prosecutors. I strongly refute her comments.
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EU threat to client money protection
Plans to enhance the security of client money held in solicitors’ bank accounts could be scuppered by an EU proposal to cap payouts following bank failures. The UK’s Financial Services Authority last week suggested increasing to £500,000 the upper limit of compensation for ‘temporary high balances’, ...
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LSC survey finds legal aid firms lacking in financial skills
Legal aid firms lack the financial expertise needed to meet the challenges presented by reforms such as best-value tendering, according to research published this week. A study of financial management skills carried out for the Legal Services Commission by management consultant Andrew Otterburn shows that fewer ...
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New cooling off rule could invalidate many personal injury CFAs
The government is to meet personal injury solicitors over concerns that new doorstep-selling regulations could invalidate many conditional fee agreements (CFAs) signed over the past six months. The new regime, the Cancellation of Contracts made in a Consumer’s Home or Place of Work etc Regulations 2008, ...
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Appeal court warns against attempts to vary divorce settlements
The Court of Appeal has warned lawyers not to apply to vary the financial settlements of divorcees whose fortunes have been hit by the recession. In a strongly worded dismissal of an attempt by financier Brian Myerson to overturn a divorce agreement, three judges last week ...
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New rights for people trafficking victims in force in UK
Immigration lawyers have a new weapon in their armoury following the implementation of a European agreement to stamp out people trafficking.
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Firms face ‘legal exposure’ over cancelled contracts
Law firms risk ‘reputational damage and legal exposure’ as increasing numbers of firms seek to defer or cancel training contracts due to the recession, a leading employment lawyer has warned. City firms Denton Wilde Sapte and LG are the latest to ask their prospective September 2009 ...
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BSB obstructing Legal Services Act reforms, says solicitor
The Bar Standards Board is ‘single-handedly frustrating government policy’ by its tardiness in changing rules to permit barristers to join legal disciplinary practices (LDPs), according to a solicitor trying to set up a new-style partnership.
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Attorney general promotes diversity in the profession
The diversity agenda must be pushed forward but positive discrimination in the legal profession is not the answer, according to the attorney general, Lady Scotland. In an interview with the Gazette, Scotland said there is ‘clearly lots to do’. The profession must ‘consolidate the work we ...
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Firm appoints first legal executive partner
Legal executive advocate Nick Hanning became the first legal executive to be made partner in a law firm under the Legal Services Act’s new business structure changes, according to the Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX). Hanning, a personal injury lawyer at Poole firm RWPS, took his ...
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FSA hires investigators to take on ‘boiler room’ scams
The Financial Services Authority is to boost its ability to combat ‘boiler room’ scams by recruiting 20 additional investigators to its enforcement division, the Gazette has learned. The extra staff will supplement the planned recruitment of 40 investigators by the FSA’s director of enforcement, Margaret ...
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Law Commission proposes new tests for expert witness evidence
Expert witness evidence may have to undergo formal reliability tests to determine whether it can be admitted in criminal trials under proposals from the Law Commission. A consultation published this week calls for guidelines to help judges determine whether or not evidence is ‘sufficiently trustworthy’ for a jury to consider. ...
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Why aren’t your computers talking with your phone system?
Law firms love the phone. They love letters too. This may be why they like faxes so much, given that they are a true combination of the two. These days they also love email, and even teleconferencing.
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LSB publishes business plan and cost recovery proposals
The Legal Services Board today published its business plan for 2009/10 and named its senior management team. The plan gives priority to work on regulatory independence, alternative business structures, providing effective redress and the development of a model of regulatory excellence in legal services. ...
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Copyright Tribunal overhaul will fast-track small claims
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) today proposed to streamline large-scale Copyright Tribunal cases and allow smaller claims to be fast-tracked, as it launched a review of the tribunal’s rules. The IPO said the changes will make the tribunal quicker and cheaper to use, particularly for individuals ...
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Is £90,000 too much protection, or not enough?
First of all: I’m a fan of the single market, which means you can probably label me ‘pro-Europe’. Having sat through lectures on EU law and the law of the single market while at university...