Last 3 months headlines – Page 1650
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Turning to the index
The Gazette did not find its front page hard to fill this week, what with the Smedley report and Abbey’s bombshell for conveyancing firms. It is just possible, however, that the week’s most significant development in respect of legal business is the establishment of the world’s first stockmarket index for ...
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Corporate firms need regulatory group, says Smedley
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is not up to the job of regulating corporate law firms and needs to be fundamentally restructured to equip it for the task. That is the key conclusion of Nick Smedley, the former senior civil servant commissioned by the Law Society to ...
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Council legal departments face budget crunch
Local authorities face gaps in the availability of legal advice in key areas as council legal departments struggle to cope with rising demand and diminishing resources, according to exclusive research for the Gazette. A survey of 124 heads of legal found respondents predicting a rise in ...
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Solicitors’ defence union back under discussion
Solicitors facing disciplinary hearings or complaints procedures could receive formal representation under a defence scheme being considered by the Law Society. The Society says it is studying the idea of setting up a legal defence union as a voluntary or compulsory scheme. The Society’s Membership ...
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No more automatic secrecy for disciplined judges
The names of judges removed from office following disciplinary proceedings will no longer be kept secret, justice secretary Jack Straw (pictured) announced last week. Launching the second annual report of the Office of Judicial Complaints (OJC), he said there would now be a presumption that ...
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Biggest ever survey of women solicitors
The biggest ever survey of women’s status and role within the profession may contradict recent suggestions that the recession is having less impact on female workers than on men, the new chairwoman of the Association of Women Solicitors (AWS) said last week.
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Tories ponder ways to alleviate legal aid ‘crisis’
A contingency legal aid fund and private sector investment are among proposals being considered by the Conservatives to overhaul a legal aid system ‘in crisis’, shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve QC told the Gazette in an interview published today on our website.
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Social welfare boost
A quarter of a million more people will qualify for help with social welfare problems following a 5% rise in the cut-off threshold for civil legal aid, the Ministry of Justice announced last week. Lord Bach, legal aid minister, told the Advice Services Alliance conference in ...
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Fire forces move of tribunal hearings
Tribunal hearings at Field House, off Chancery Lane, will move to Taylor House, Rosebery Avenue for a ‘considerable time’ following a major fire last week. Some 75 firefighters and 15 appliances fought the blaze at the building, which houses asylum and immigration tribunals and the patents court. None of the ...
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Database survey warns of legal risks
People who take the government to the European Court of Human Rights for mishandling personal data should not have to risk paying the state’s costs if they lose, a landmark survey of government IT programmes said this week. Database State, published by the Joseph Rowntree ...
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BSB to revamp barristers’ code
The Bar Standards Board is to overhaul the barristers’ code of conduct to bring it into line with other regulatory instruments and create a set of ‘clear and user friendly’ professional rules. It will be the first structural change to the code since its introduction in 1981.
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Professional services get their own share index
The world’s first stockmarket index for professional services firms was launched this week at the City headquarters of magic circle firm Allen & Overy. A key aim of the initiative is to educate analysts and institutional investors about the potential benefits of investing in ...
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Sports sponsors, media moves and fashion sales
Bigger splash: British Swimming, the sport’s national governing body, announced a £15m sponsoring partnership with British Gas. In-house teams advised British Gas and British Swimming, while English governing body ASA was separately advised by Leicester firm BHW. Swim Wales was advised by Swansea ...
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SRA responds to Smedley
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has delivered a measured response to the Smedley report, published today. The chair of the board, Peter Williamson, said he ‘welcomes Nick Smedley's contribution to the wider debate on the future regulation of legal services’.
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Customer service is not just for restaurants
Here’s something I bet you never do – call up your own law firm and pretend to be what support people call ‘a wasp in a bottle’. Law firms should know all about customer service.
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Abbey panel consolidation – update
Abbey has declined to reinstate 542 law firm offices removed from its conveyancing panel but will be writing today (27 March) to all those affected by the consolidation exercise. All will have an opportunity to reapply to join a panel consolidating Abbey’s panel members with those of Alliance & Leicester, ...
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MoJ announces new wave of domestic violence courts
Eighteen specialist courts are to open to help victims of domestic violence, the Ministry of Justice has announced. The new courts, in eastern England, East Midlands, London, the north-east, north-west, south-west, West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside will take the total of specialist domestic violence courts to 122. ...
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Ready for what, exactly?
A conference organised by the Advice Services Alliance contained some blunt messages for the Legal Services Commission and its master, the Ministry of Justice.
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Pro bono winners urged to apply for costs
The former attorney general has urged pro bono lawyers to use new legislation to apply for costs when they win a case, to support wider access to justice. Lord Goldsmith told City Law School’s pro bono fair that lawyers doing pro bono cases can apply for costs orders under section ...
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Chancery Lane dismisses NHS ‘cash cow’ claim
The Law Society has taken issue with a Sunday Times report alleging that fee-hungry lawyers use the NHS as a ‘£100m cash cow’ in making compensation claims. Chief executive Des Hudson (pictured) said the best way for the NHS Litigation Authority to pare legal costs ...