Last 3 months headlines – Page 1692
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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...
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Social immobility the norm in legal profession
The legal world emerges badly from the findings of government research into social mobility published today. According to the Phase 1 report of the Cabinet Office’s Fair Access Panel, solicitors and barristers were far more likely than the population at large to have been privately schooled. ...
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Litigation: (nearly) the new alternative dispute resolution?
CEDR Solve, the dispute resolution services arm of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution, announced that it has just dealt with its 15,000th referred dispute since its launch in 1990...
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Tax prosecutors to merge with CPS
The Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO) is to merge with the Crown Prosecution Service four years after it was set up, in a move to save public money and improve efficiency. The Attorney General, Lady Scotland QC (pictured), announced the change following a review of ...
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Green recovery will push environmental law mainstream
Robert Lee is Professor of Law at Cardiff Law School and a member of the academic panel at Landmark Chambers’ Centre for Environmental LawLast month’s Budget introduced a range of measures to encourage investment ...
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Scotland must try harder after report on trafficking
Scotland lags behind the rest of the UK in the fight against people trafficking. That is, at least, what a Scottish government report published earlier this month says.
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Legal aid - 60th anniversary
Steve Hynes is director of the Legal Action Group As it enters its seventh decade, and despite its flaws, legal aid remains one of the best such systems in the world, providing access to ...