Last 3 months headlines – Page 1361
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Costs rule ‘will fuel litigation’
Litigators may face a tough new rule on the ‘proportionality’ of their costs that could fuel satellite litigation and uncertainty, experts warned last week. Nicholas Bacon QC, a member of both the Civil Procedure Rules committee and Civil Justice Council group dealing with implementation of the ...
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Court closures 'undermine Big Society'
A leading barrister has called for a halt to magistrates’ court closures, saying economies would be better made by returning the courts to magistrates’ control. In a pamphlet, The Cost to Justice, published by think tank Politeia, Stanley Brodie QC said the programme to cut 142 ...
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LCJ ‘not giving up’ on solicitor judges
Law firms should be more supportive of solicitors applying for judicial positions and stop allowing the issue to blight promising careers, the UK’s two senior judges told a House of Lords committee last week. Supreme Court president Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers and Lord Chief Justice ...
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Lawyers working at quangos can get support
With the government’s controversial Public Bodies Bill promising a ‘bonfire of the quangos’, lawyers working in the sector are facing an unsettled future, with increasing demands to do more within shrinking budgets. The bill, currently making its way through parliament, will allow ministers, by order, to abolish, merge or transfer ...
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Needless long hours
I read the comments of both Nick Herbert and in relation to magistrates sitting at unsocial times and hours. I have little respect for Mr Herbert’s opinion that ‘swift justice is currently the exception...’. Is he unaware of the Criminal Justice: Simple, Speedy Summary (CJSSS) process? ...
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Keep formal training
I have followed the recent correspondence and editorial on the subject of training with some interest. I am about to retire after over 40 years as a solicitor and nearly 50 years at work. Mr Howell’s experience must have been later than mine.
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The worst advice
According to reports, the government has asked Aviva, AXA, Direct Line and the Association of British Insurers to help shape its justice reforms. Having had the misfortune of dealing with these organisations for many years, I realise just how ridiculous a proposition this is, although perhaps ...
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LSC helpline cut back again
The Legal Services Commission’s telephone helpline is taking emergency calls only in an effort to reduce a backlog of work. Emergency calls are those requiring action within 48 hours or where the information being sought is not available elsewhere. In July, the commission cut the ...
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Referral fee ban will go in legal aid bill
The justice secretary has confirmed that a rule banning the payment of referral fees in personal injury cases will be introduced into the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill and debated next week in parliament. Kenneth Clarke tabled the amendment, stating that a regulated ...
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Plea for Society to join forensic service fight
A solicitor renowned for his work freeing the wrongly convicted Guildford Four has asked the Law Society to become a ‘major player’ in the campaign to stop the government’s proposed closure of the Forensic Science Service (FSS).
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More than just ‘bumper stickers’
To refer to documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a series of ‘bumper stickers devoid of substance’ - as one speaker did at the ‘Fairness, Justice and Human Rights’ conference last Saturday - is to overlook an important point. While it is ...
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Employment law should be centralised
by Joanne Owers, chair of the Employment Lawyers Association Another month, another government consultation - or so it seems. No sooner does one consultation period around an important area of employment law end, than another often overlapping one commences - and before government has indicated its ...
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The Baker report on extradition law is something to build on
When Sir Michael Bichard was finalising his report on child protection measures after the Soham murders of 2002, he took some trouble to ensure the institutions he was about to criticise would give his recommendations a fair wind. On the BBC’s Law in Action this week, he told me how ...
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Judges not ‘quangocrats’ should accredit advocacy, says Deech
Judicial assessment will be a key component of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA), rather than assessment by ‘quangocrats and drama coaches’ according to the Bar Standards Board chair. Lady Deech said the controversial scheme ‘depends on the involvement of judges as the assessors of ...
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Djanogly: referral ban will cover recipients
The new offence being created to ban referral fees will cover those receiving the fees as well as the lawyers who pay them, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly said last week. The minister told a LexisNexis costs conference that he wants the offence to go ‘further ...
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Junior lawyers sitting pretty
Here’s a romantic tale that brought a tear even to Obiter’s cynical eye. Neville Takiar, commercial dispute solicitor at Newcastle firm Muckle, went to last year’s Junior Lawyers Division annual ball in London on his own. The long trip was not wasted.
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1966 and all that
Lord Collins of Mapesbury (Lawrence Collins) couldn’t be present to pick up his lifetime achievement award at last week’s Law Society Excellence Awards. Instead, he recorded an acceptance speech, Hollywood-style, that was broadcast at the event. In it he reminisced about a less frantic age ...
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Vos populi
Mr Justice Geoffrey Vos, former Bar Council chairman and one of the most esteemed lawyers of his generation, was in provocative form when delivering last week’s KPMG lecture on ‘The Role of UK Judges in the Success of UK plc’.
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Justice head bemoans judicial diversity gap
The head of law reform and human rights organisation Justice has heavily criticised the lack of diversity in the top echelon of the judiciary. ‘We are shamed’ by the lack of women and ethnic minority judges in the Supreme Court, compared with the US and Canada, ...