Last 3 months headlines – Page 1695
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Family barristers attack legal aid fixed-fee scheme
Family barristers have attacked plans for the payment of fixed advocacy fees in legal aid cases from 2010. The Family Law Bar Association (FLBA), which represents 2,300 barristers, alleges that the proposals take a ‘breathtaking risk with the most vulnerable in society, namely families and children at risk of serious ...
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Judges’ pensions and fiscal meltdown
The late Peter Cook famously lamented that he could have been a judge, but never had the Latin. One can understand his ambition from reading the report of the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB), published this week.
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Our paperless future, only partially assured
Yes, I know, you’ve heard it all before. One day soon, a day hiding perversely just out of sight, law firms will realise that shuffling bits of dead tree around is a pretty dumb way of organising their information
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Paperless lawyering, part three
As a lawyer of a certain age – ie I started out before PCs and emails, when cutting and pasting documents actually meant cutting and pasting typed documents and then photocopying them – I am more used to handling paper, printing out documents and scribbling handwritten notes on them
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You have the right to phone a solicitor – for now
The Legal Services Commission has published its second consultation paper on best value tendering (BVT) for criminal defence work in police stations and magistrates’ courts.
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Diversity and monitoring
One has to feel some sympathy for the Solicitors Regulation Authority in connection with its efforts to respond to concerns about diversity.
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We’ve got the technology – now give us law e-books
Some years ago, I plied this trade as an IT journalist and remember writing in breathless tones about e-ink/e-paper, and about how it could revolutionise how we look at the shifting balance between paper and computers for storage of documents and ad hoc notes.
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Ordering pizza and customer relationship management
It’s one of my missions to get it through law firms’ metaphorical skulls that just because they are unique businesses, it doesn’t mean they can’t learn a huge amount from how other business sectors work. Customer relationship management is a perfect case in point.
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Counselling the council
A few days ago saw a major gathering of the municipal great and good as local government solicitors converged on Warwick University for the Solicitors in Local Government annual weekend school.
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Costs reforms must avoid creating more problems
by Anthony Hughes, president of the Forum of Insurance LawyersNot since Lord Justice Woolf started his review, Access to Justice, in the late 1990s has there been so much interest in the civil justice system.
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UK has more lifers than rest of Europe combined
England and Wales sentence more prisoners to life than all 46 other Council of Europe member states combined, according to the Howard League for Penal Reform. Figures released this week show that 12,090 men, women and children in England and Wales are serving life sentences, ...
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Society seeks urgent talks after Abbey cuts panel
The Law Society is to hold urgent talk with retail bank Abbey next week after reports that the bank has removed many firms from its approved panel of solicitors without notice. This has affected new start-ups, sole practices and firms not instructed by Abbey for ...
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Driving a hard bargain: the ins and outs of hire claims
Rather than settling down, credit hire claims in many courts all over the country appear to be on the increase. Certain key issues have been settled in three chapters of litigation to have reached the House of Lords: (a) credit hire agreements are not champertous ...
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Family legal aid fees will leave solicitors worse off
The proposed fixed fees for family legal aid work will leave solicitors worse off, according to a Law Society survey published today.
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Allen & Overy hosts launch of pioneering share index
The world’s first stockmarket index for professional services firms was launched this week at the City of London 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 ...
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Trespassing in the public interest; functional entanglement
A Birmingham city councillor was found by the Administrative Court to have breached the council’s Code of Conduct...
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Civil evidence
Real property – Admissibility – Limitations – Without prejudice communications Ofulue & Anor v Bossert: HL (Lords Hope of Craighead, Scott of Foscote, Rodger of Earlsferry, Walker of Gestingthorpe, Neuberger of Abbotsbury): 11 March 2009 ...
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Abbey strikes thousands from conveyancing panel
Hundreds of solicitors across England and Wales reacted with shock and dismay last week after mortgage provider Abbey halved the size of its panel for residential conveyancing. Some 6,050 law firm offices have been removed from the 12,000-strong panel as part of a rationalisation ...
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The history of the Ponzi scheme
The arrest of financier Bernard Madoff on suspicion of running a $50bn fraud offering to pay a steady if suspicious 12% return on investments in good and bad times has had everyone nodding their heads wisely saying, ‘Oh, yes, a Ponzi scheme’. But how many know who Ponzi was or ...