Last 3 months headlines – Page 1563
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Duty rota system in ‘chaos’
The police station duty rotas issued last week by the Legal Services Commission will run for only three months due to problems with the allocation process, which lawyers claim has ‘descended into chaos’. The Legal Services Commission has twice reissued the rotas for police station duty ...
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CPS damages claim saga rumbles on
A judge has with a ‘heavy heart’ allowed the Crown Prosecution Service to continue defending an employment tribunal claim that has already been in court four times and cost the taxpayer more than £1m, including a record £600,000 in damages for racial discrimination. Former CPS prosecutor ...
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Family lawyers left ‘in limbo’ by LSC
Legal aid lawyers have been ‘left in limbo’ by the Legal Services Commission’s continuing failure to announce the outcome of the family and social welfare tenders, practitioners said this week. Firms were originally due to find out the results of the bidding exercise last month, but ...
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Government plans Defamation Bill
Media lawyers have given a mixed response to the government’s announcement that it is to publish a draft Defamation Bill in the new year. Justice minister Lord McNally outlined the government’s plans to review the law on defamation to protect freedom of speech and expression during ...
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Big four buoy partner profits in face of declining revenues
The UK’s quartet of billion-pound law firms have maintained healthy profits per equity partner (PEP) in the face of declining revenues, their financial results have shown. Industry observers said the firms had adopted a sensible strategy of cutting partners to bolster average partner earnings, enabling them ...
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Small firms will be ‘resilient’ in the face of ABSs
Small law firms are likely to be ‘resilient’ to the impact of alternative business structures, research has suggested. A report by consultants Oxera, commissioned by the Law Society, also concluded that ABSs are unlikely to be detrimental to geographic access to justice for consumers. ...
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ABI demands tougher indemnity terms
Insurers must be given better access to solicitors’ disciplinary histories before granting them indemnity cover, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) said this week. Outlining proposals for reform of the professional indemnity insurance (PII) market submitted to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the ABI said insurers want ...
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Simon Young
Council members and staff at the Law Society were greatly saddened to learn of the untimely death on 3 July of former council member Simon Young. Simon was elected to the council in 2001 to represent the Society’s Law Management Section, which he did for ...
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Could the ‘Freemium’ model work in legal services?
Twenty-first-century businesses are making vast sums of money by charging their customers nothing. This is the paradox at the heart of Chris Anderson’s new book Free, the Future of a Radical Price, which argues that new technologies are causing production and distribution costs to plummet.
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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’ ...