Last 3 months headlines – Page 1651
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Clifford Chance freezes pay
Magic circle firm Clifford Chance today (31 March) announced a pay freeze for all lawyers and business services staff worldwide. Around 3,800 lawyers will be affected, across the firm’s 30 global offices. In a statement, Clifford Chance said it will hold salaries ...
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LDPs go live
The revolution in legal services provision heralded by the 2007 Legal Services Act officially gets under way this week with the advent of legal disciplinary practices. For the first time, law firms can be owned by different types of lawyers, and a proportion of non-lawyers. ...
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Clarification: Franks Solicitors
We have been asked to clarify that Franks Solicitors of London E8, which is the subject of an SRA intervention (see [2009] Gazette, 19 March, 23), is not the same firm as Franks & Co of Cursitor Street, London EC4A.
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[April spoof] Bankers to be fast-tracked into law
[1 April 2009 spoof story] city law firms have welcomed government plans to fast-track redundant investment bankers into the solicitors’ profession. Under what the Ministry of Justice is calling ‘Fast Track to Success’, former bankers are to undergo a month’s intensive legal tuition before sitting examinations ...
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Solicitors more trusted than barristers
Solicitors are the most trusted of the white-collar professions, according to a survey carried out for the Bar Standards Board (BSB).
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FSA proposes greater client account protection
Client money held in solicitors’ bank accounts could be given far greater protection in the event of a bank collapse, under changes proposed by the Financial Services Authority. The FSA is suggesting increasing the upper limit of compensation for ‘temporary high balances’, which includes money held ...
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Handling of some fast-track claims gives rise to serious concerns
by District Judge David Oldham. The Civil Procedure Rules are 10 years old. Their ambition was to sweep away undue delay, complexity and heavy costs with new procedures for civil cases.
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China – a dilemma
China admits to having executed 1,718 of its citizens in 2008, according to a report just published by Amnesty International. That’s 72% of the 2,390 executions recorded worldwide.
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Logo bill is a sign of the times
Late last year [2008, Gazette, 20 November, 3], the Lord Chancellor’s Department revealed the logo for the new Supreme Court. Readers with an interest in heraldry will recall its emblematic depiction of the UK’s three jurisdictions embraced by a symbol representing both Libra and omega. Now the Tories’ Dominic Grieve ...
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Journalists in family courts
At a rough guess, of the 150-odd people who packed out Chancery Lane’s reading room last night to discuss the Ministry of Justice’s plans to admit journalists into family courts, 149 think it a bad idea. And the one who is in principle in favour (me) has strong reservations about ...
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Professional managers must be accepted into law firms, and fast
Given that the Code of Conduct now requires law firms to have in place a proper management structure, how well is this really being accepted? And how well is this being implemented?
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The state we’re in
So there you have it. MPs have voted in favour of holding some inquests in secret, after a string of heavily spun ‘concessions’ from the government. This is either another nail in the coffin of a free society or a matter of supreme indifference to all but a self-selecting cadre ...
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Does your firm need a viral ad?
I knew the Arctic Monkeys had gone utterly mainstream the morning I heard a package on their success via online word-of-mouth marketing on Radio 4’s Today programme.
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Show us the proof government can handle our data legally
A study commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform trust has lobbed a legal hand grenade into the government’s stated ambition to look after us better with the help of bigger and more joined up computer databases. According to the report, the Database State, nearly a quarter of the government’s biggest ...
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Calm down dear, it’s only a new world of conversations
It seems that so far our brave new world for the Gazette, of blogging and user commenting, is working a treat – our visitor numbers are up and people are reading for longer and seeing more pages when they turn up.
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Let Lord Laming have his way
Surely it should be obvious that if you put up the cost of something you put people off buying it? Economists see this as the absolute basis of economics – the use of incentives to deter and encourage. How Whitehall, then, thought making child care cases up to 2,500% more ...
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Baker & McKenzie to cut staff in London
US firm Baker & McKenzie is to axe up to 85 staff in London, including between 20 and 30 lawyers, as part of a new redundancy consultation. The firm is also anticipating a pay freeze and scrapping its all-staff bonus. Gary Senior, London managing partner, ...
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Don't overreact to downturn, says professional services group
Law firms operating in the UK will fall behind firms in foreign markets unless specific regulatory burdens are lifted, according to government officials and law firm chiefs. In its first report, submitted to Chancellor Alistair Darling this week, the Professional Services Global Competitiveness Group (PSGC) ...
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Chancery Lane seeks tax concession
The Law Society has warned that taxing law firms on work they have yet to be paid for could result in small practices getting into financial trouble. President Paul Marsh has written to HM Revenue & Customs asking the authority to suspend the UITF 40 ...
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Free movement of people and adopting EU provisions
To be free or not to be – that is the question for the UK government as it continues to struggle to implement the free movement of people provision, some 50 years after the establishment of the EU.