Last 3 months headlines – Page 1509
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APIL urges government to tighten grip on claims management companies
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has called on Lord Young to recommend tighter regulation of claims management companies (CMCs) as part of his review of health and safety laws. Senior figures from APIL held a face-to-face meeting with Lord Young of Graffham to offer advice ...
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Will LPO pose a threat to junior lawyers?
So the latest news on private equity investment in law firms is that, as far as the City firms are concerned at least, the investors have gone cold.
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Solicitors ‘delaying’ conveyances due to staff shortages
Staff shortages at conveyancing firms are slowing down property transactions, according to a prominent estate agent and former anti-home information pack campaigner. Nick Salmon, commercial director of independent estate agents Harrison Murray who founded anti-HIP group Splinta, told the Gazette that ‘understaffed’ firms are struggling ...
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Solicitors welcome ruling on asylum deportations
The Law Society has welcomed the High Court’s ruling that the fast-track deportation of foreign nationals, which did not allow enough time for them to seek legal advice, is unlawful. In January 2010, the Home Office widened its policy of waiving the usual 72-hour notice ...
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Civil procedure
Costs – Human rights – Demonstrations Rebecca Hall and Others v Mayor of London (on behalf of the Greater London Authority): CA (Civ Div) (Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Master of the Rolls, Lady Justice Arden, Lord Justice Stanley Burton): ...
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Information law: the future
The coalition government has announced a series of legislative proposals and initiatives which will have a big impact on information law. David Cameron has said he wants to rip off the ‘cloak of secrecy’ around government and public services and extend transparency as far as possible.
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Employment and age-old problem
I was very upset to read the letter, titled 'Too old for the legal profession', in which a 59-year-old solicitor said he had been told that he is on the ‘scrapheap’ and unemployable. What on earth are firms thinking? What a fantastic opportunity to employ someone who is likely to ...
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Conveyancing panel concerns
Lloyds Banking Group has announced that it is to remove from its conveyancing panel those firms that carry out a low volume of mortgage work over a rolling 12-month period. Does that mean that Lloyds no longer wishes to look after our low-volume client and office ...
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End of the line for police station advice?
Cuts in the provision of legal aid are perhaps an inevitable if uncomfortable consequence of the economic mess that we find ourselves in. However, we now learn that justice secretary Ken Clarke’s new-found enthusiasm for keeping offenders out of the prison system is matched by contemplation of a plan to ...
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Pots and kettles
The Gazette website reported this week on the dodgy doings of judges and magistrates contained in the Office for Judicial Complaints’ annual report. Snippets of bad behaviour gleaned from the report included one instance where an unnamed magistrate, presumably in a frightful sulk, refused to return to the courtroom to ...
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Confusion over slots for Criminal Defence Service duty rota
I have reached the end of my tether, with the help of the Legal Services Commission Criminal Defence Service. I realised that the end was in sight when I visited its website on 12 July. The duty rota for our scheme had been published on ...
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Payback time
Ken Clarke is very keen on restorative justice, if we are to believe reports that criminals will be let out of jail early if they say sorry to their victims. Restorative justice is an important way for criminals to realise the human cost of their crimes. And it also happens ...
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Reforms to employment tribunals are urgently needed
by Joanne Owers, chair of the Employment Lawyers Association and chair of the ELA Working Party on Employment Tribunals This spring the management committee of the Employment Lawyers Association (ELA) decided to conduct a survey of its 5,500 members across England, Wales and Scotland to gain ...
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The tender miseries of a legal aid lawyer
Back in March, when Jack Straw announced plans to turn the Legal Services Commission into an executive agency, the Ministry of Justice assured us that the department had already assumed tighter control of the quango. At the time, the Law Society called for greater clarity in respect of the ‘parameters ...
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Offaly clever
Which sportsman played World Cup football and test match cricket for his country? How many prime ministers have served under our present Queen? What is Inspector Morse’s first name? All, it seems, perfectly easy questions for the profession’s intellectual elite, who – along with Obiter – last week competed in ...
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Brothers in arms
Obiter heard tell this week of an intriguing tale of sibling rivalry – two brothers pitted against each other in a public battle. But this time it was not David and Ed. No indeed: Kamar Uddin, principal at Birmingham firm Res Ipsa, was ...
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Booth inconvenienced
Some women still reckon the profession treats them pretty shoddily at times, but according to Cherie Booth QC, things used to be a heck of a lot worse. Giving the Association of Women Solicitors’ Fiona Woolf lecture at the Law Society last week, Booth recalled ...
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Outcry over erosion of rule of law in Maldives
A former Maldives attorney general has called on the Law Society to lead a mission to the country to assess the erosion of the rule of law, as judges are assaulted, courts suspended, and citizens’ rights ‘crushed under foot’, he claimed. Dr Hassan Saeed told the ...
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Mental health lawyers concerned over tender contracts
Mental health lawyers have expressed concern at the impact of the Legal Services Commission’s recent tender process as national firm Duncan Lewis seeks to recruit 28 mental health lawyers under a new consultancy model to fulfil its contracts. Duncan Lewis, an established legal aid provider in ...