Last 3 months headlines – Page 1603
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New ideas to squeeze more value from private practice
Long gone are the days when going in-house was likened to putting on a comfy pair of slippers. General counsel now enjoy high status as custodians of the corporate purse strings. They want more for their money and are getting it. Fixed fees and rigorous panel ...
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Freezing assets of ‘terrorists’ – how fair is the UN sanctions committee?
The attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 brought many changes to the legal landscape, of which three facets are perhaps most familiar to legal practitioners: criminal trials of suspected terrorists; control orders imposed on those suspected of terrorist activity; and the extradition of terrorist suspects to other countries, ...
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Swiss legal professional privilege plea for foreign in-house lawyers
Europe’s largest association of corporate general counsel has asked the Swiss government to bolster legal professional privilege for foreign in-house lawyers working in the country. The call comes after the Swiss government put forward a draft bill to grant resident corporate counsel a right to legal professional privilege – a ...
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City firms reject panel pitch offers due to billing terms
City firms are hitting back at increasingly aggressive cost-cutting by their corporate clients by rejecting offers of panel pitches or putting in pitches that they know are destined to fail, the Gazette has learned. Senior lawyers from the magic circle down to mid-tier commercial firms told ...
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Solicitors in referral tie-up with IFAs
Solicitors and independent financial advisers (IFAs) have entered into a nationwide tie-up to take advantage of the relaxation of the rules on partnerships between lawyers and non-lawyers. Some 600 law firm members of the 360 Legal Group will be given access to 1,700 IFA members of ...
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Employment complaints rise by a third – LCS
Complaints against employment solicitors have risen by almost a third in the past year, while personal injury lawyers saw a 15% rise, the Gazette has learned. However, complaints against conveyancing solicitors fell by nearly a fifth, to 1,184. The latest figures, obtained ...
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Chancery Lane backs ABS advice subsidies
The Law Society has said new providers entering the market as alternative business structures (ABSs) should be obliged to offer financial support to existing law firms to safeguard access to justice. In its response to the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s consultation on ABSs, Chancery Lane warned ...
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Defendants on videolink 'get raw deal', warn solicitors
Defendants who appear in court via videolink are being ‘treated differently’ from those who appear in person, solicitors have warned, with a much higher proportion going unrepresented. The pilot virtual court, whereby defendants make their first appearance in court via videolink from a police station, has ...
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SRA considers foreign lawyer language test
Foreign qualified lawyers seeking to practise in England and Wales may have to pass an English language test under proposals to be considered by the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority board this week. The SRA’s education and training committee has put forward the recommendation as an amendment to ...
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Personal injury claims portal under fire
An online personal injury service that claims to save consumers time and money by cutting lawyers out of PI claims has come under fire from solicitors. Lawyers claimed the new service would see claimants ‘swallowed alive’ by companies’ claims departments. Itsmyclaim.com describes ...
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Supreme Court emblems cost taxpayer £50k
The Treasury’s coffers may presently echo to the ghostly rustle of rolling tumbleweed, but no expense has been spared for Britain’s new Supreme Court. Taxpayers have paid nearly £50,000 for the design of not one but two emblems for the institution, a freedom of information request has revealed. ...
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Solicitors hand back £1.5m to miners under voluntary scheme
Solicitors have handed back more than £1.5m to injured former miners under a new voluntary repayment scheme after wrongly deducting fees from miners’ government compensation awards – and this figure could rise further as the project rolls on, the Gazette can reveal.
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Carbon footprint pledge
City firm Olswang has pledged to cut its carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 as part of a new environmental campaign. The 10:10 campaign, launched last week, was set up ahead of December’s climate change talks in Copenhagen. Olswang, the only law firm among the founding members of the campaign, ...
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APIL walks out of fixed-fee talks
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has walked out of talks on extending fixed costs in personal injury cases, the Gazette has learned. In an unprecedented move for the organisation, APIL has withdrawn from talks on extending fixed costs for all ‘fast track’ cases.
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Last chance to see… that PII form before your broker pulls it away
Ok, I promise that we'll stop talking about PII now. Actually, I'm lying – it's not that I find it the most riveting subject in legal practice right now, but it is very timely, as we news people say, and we've a duty to give you as much information about ...
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Football fans – law-abiding pariahs
The erosion of liberty is especially insidious because it happens by barely perceptible degrees. As a resident of Edinburgh, I was always able to park in the wide streets surrounding the city’s lovely Botanical Gardens for nothing (congestion is not and never has been a problem). No longer. Now you ...
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Solicitors sign referral deal with financial advisers
Solicitors and independent financial advisers (IFAs) have entered into a nationwide tie-up in order to benefit from the relaxation of the rules on partnerships between lawyers and non-lawyers. Some 600 law firm members of the 360 Legal Group will be given access to 1,700 IFA members ...
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Deals delight but the recession isn't over yet
Boom! Bang! We’re a week away from the one-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, and the big guns are beginning to fire again in quick succession. In the space of just two days, we have a huge deal announced in the food sector (Kraft trying and failing to buy ...
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New EU term begins – what’s on the agenda
The summer break is over. Newly elected MEPs are beginning to meet, and the policy machine is grinding into action once again. So, what is on the agenda generally, and for lawyers in particular?