Last 3 months headlines – Page 1635
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France sets out agenda for OLC
Improving consumer confidence in the legal profession will be high on the agenda of the first chair of the Office for Legal Complaints, Elizabeth France, as work starts on how the organisation will be run. ‘Change is needed to improve confidence in the system,’ France ...
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Hunt condemns unregulated legal services providers
The peer tasked by Chancery Lane with reviewing legal regulation has hit out at what he described as the ‘great unwashed’ – unregulated advisers who provide services that solicitors ‘are much better qualified to provide’. Lord Hunt of Wirral was speaking in Manchester ...
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Best value tendering will drive firms out of business, say lawyers
Criminal practitioners have slammed the Legal Services Commission’s ‘reckless’ plans to test best value tendering, saying they will force many firms in the pilot areas out of business. The LSC is consulting on proposals to test the new method of commissioning services in police stations and ...
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Council replaces legal post with head of corporate governance
A county council is replacing the role of head of legal and democratic services with a head of corporate governance as part of a series of measures to make £1.4m in efficiency savings. The move, by Northamptonshire County Council, is likely to attract widespread interest ...
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QualitySolicitors demonstrate outside Royal Courts of Justice
QualitySolicitors.com, the legal marketing brand, marked its launch this week with a symbolic demonstration outside the Royal Courts of Justice against the prospect of supermarkets offering legal services – so called ‘Tesco law’. Participants shouted ‘Say no to Tesco law’ and handed out cans of ...
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New guidance for child care and supervision cases
The Ministry of Justice is drawing up new guidelines to help local authority lawyers tackle problems faced during child care cases. The Gazette has learned that new guidance is intended to make the Public Law Outline (PLO), introduced in April last year, more effective and ...
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Law Society warning over Registry’s early completion plan
Land Registry plans to streamline the completion process will increase solicitors’ costs and make conveyancing less efficient, the Law Society has warned. The new ‘early completion’ practice applies where an application for a discharge of whole has been received along with other applications, but ...
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Jackson proposes Commercial Court cost reforms
Costs rules for high-value complex commercial cases could be amended after the judge in charge of a wide-ranging review of civil litigation costs opened the door for reforms. Despite opposition from the Commercial Court Users Committee (CCUC), which is carrying out its own review of ...
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Madoff fraud prompts rush of securities lawsuits
Convicted tycoon Bernard Madoff’s ponzi fraud spawned 30% of securities lawsuits worldwide in the first quarter of 2009, research has indicated. Of the 169 new securities lawsuits filed in Q1 this year, 50 related to the Madoff fraud, according to business data company Advisen. ...
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Bids for nuclear development sites, mining rights and property sales
Going nuclear: Magic circle firm Freshfields advised energy company E.ON on its successful bid for nuclear development sites in Oldbury and Wylfa. E.ON, alongside joint venture partner RWE, acquired the land at a Nuclear Decommissioning Authority auction, where three sites were sold for ...
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Criminal justice system ‘institutionally sexist’
Women suffer widespread discrimination at all levels of the criminal justice system, including in the legal profession and judiciary, according to a report launched at the Law Society today by equality campaigners the Fawcett Society.
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Law Society of Scotland 60th anniversary conference: Susskind fires private equity warning
Private equity firms are stepping up their interest in English legal practices as they search for lucrative investment opportunities in a difficult market, according to Professor Richard Susskind, author of The End of Lawyers? However, the legal services futurologist warned that law firm owners hoping to ...
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LSB consults on regulation of new business structures
The Legal Services Board today stressed its determination to sanction alternative business structures by mid-2011, as it launched a discussion paper on how they will be regulated. The board said it will directly license ABSs if the approved regulators do not seek to become licensing authorities. ...
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Chancery Lane steps in to help run migrant lawyer programmes
The Law Society is to help law firms run internship and secondment programmes that were threatened by new immigration rules by launching a scheme for migrant lawyers under Tier 5 (T5) of the points-based system (PBS). As the overarching body for the scheme, the Society will ...
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Straw drops secret inquest plans
Plans to hold secret inquests without juries have been dropped by the government, justice secretary Jack Straw told parliament today. Straw said in a written statement that the move to introduce non-jury inquests on national security issues did not garner enough support among the parties. Clauses ...
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Who’s calling the regulation shots now? The Legal Services Board
In setting out its views on the regulation of alternative business structures (ABSs) yesterday, the Legal Services Board signalled its willingness to override approved regulators if they don’t get their act together quickly.
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Home working – the antidote to swine flu?
Does it have to take a pandemic or a disaster to make more of home working? Swine flu is a scary thing. No one wants to take any chances with it and some employers are imposing an unofficial quarantine on employees who have recently returned from Mexico.
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Don’t complain that you haven’t been warned
Let’s be honest, no one likes to receive complaints, though some businesses like to burnish their consumer-friendly credentials by pretending that they do. What matters though, ultimately, is how you deal with them.
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Regulation that will have the respect of the regulated
by Robert Heslett is vice-president of the Law Society Lord Hunt’s interim report was delivered earlier this month, immediately ahead of the launch of his roadshows across England and Wales.
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What the Office of the Public Guardian is doing to help you
by Martin John public guardian and chief executive of Office of the Public Guardian The Office of the Public Guardian’s chief executive Martin John acknowledges that people have had problems dealing with the body, but here lays out what he is doing to renew the OPG