Latest news – Page 576
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Law Society Excellence Awards now open for nomination
The Law Society is inviting legal professionals from across England and Wales to enter the Excellence Awards 2013. ow in its seventh year, and bigger than ever before, the event showcases some of the brightest minds and most innovative firms. ...
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SRA’s popularity slips
Solicitors are less likely to speak positively of the Solicitors Regulation Authority than they were a year ago, a Law Society survey has found. Firms who took part in the 2012/13 winter poll were less likely than a year before to give ‘good’ ratings for the ...
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Criminal legal aid cuts to reach £370m
The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that projected savings of £150m in fee cuts will not, as was expected, count towards required cuts of £220m a year - taking cuts in criminal legal aid to £370m. An official also revealed that the MoJ has no contingency ...
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Economy 'testing access to justice'
Access to justice is being tested by the ‘worst economic situation since world war II’, the president of the Athens bar told a pan-European delegation of lawyers today. In his keynote address, Ioannis Adamopoulos added that no matter how bad the economic climate, it was important ...
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Traffic courts to be set up
Dedicated traffic courts will be established to deal with low-level road traffic offences and free up the courts to deal with more ‘serious and contested’ cases, the government announced today. The new courts follow a pilot in nine areas. The Ministry of Justice said it is ...
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SRA must level the playing field between corporations and law firms
It is heartening to learn that Mr Townsend, chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, urges the promotion of morality and ethics on the part of solicitors, intends to look at governance and conflicts of interest, and says that ownership and the independence of solicitors must not get muddled up.
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Minding our language
We should endeavour to uphold the highest standards of professional integrity expected of a solicitor and officer of the court, and to make the best interests of clients central to our practice of the law.
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PCT: dumbing down
The Ministry of Justice wishes to remove the right of defendants to instruct the solicitor of their choice on the basis that ‘the removal of choice may reduce the extent to which firms offer services above (my emphasis) acceptable levels’. See paragraph 23 of the criminal litigation price competition impact ...
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Family scheme: the right choice
Lucinda Ferguson makes some interesting points on arbitration in her letter ‘Final and binding awards’ (22 April), referring to the relatively new Institute of Family Law Arbitrators (IFLA) scheme.
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Women trailing at magic circle elite
The magic circle’s commitment to diversity will again be called into question after the proportion of women making partner in 2013 fell below 20%. The quintet of UK-based firms appointed just 13 women worldwide out of a total of 73. In last year’s round, ...
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Most criminal firms to snub PCT contracts
Only two of the 25 top-earning criminal legal aid firms will bid for a contract if the government’s current scheme for price-competitive tendering (PCT) is introduced – and more than half would support a boycott, a poll by the Gazette can exclusively reveal. The Gazette this ...
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Gateway aims to help vulnerable
Sexual offending against children by Jimmy Savile has focused attention on how the criminal justice system treats young and vulnerable complainants and witnesses, attorney general Dominic Grieve QC said last week. However, Grieve rejected the idea of dispensing with the adversarial system for cases involving ...
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Lawyers need to ‘network widely’
Corporate counsel who cannot show ‘cultural awareness and affinity’ will fall behind in the competition for senior in-house roles, a leading headhunter has warned. Nicholas Hedley of search consultancy Hedley May told the Law Society’s third annual in-house conference that ‘it is not enough to ...
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HJA rejects Magdalene ‘cash cow’ slurs
A claimant firm that advertised for victims of the Magdalene laundries has rejected accusations it is using the notorious Irish scandal as a ‘cash cow’ for lawyers. London firm Hodge Jones & Allen was criticised in the Irish media after it placed advertisements asking for women ...
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Pre-emption rebuke from Lords
Peers have warned the government to stop relying on a 1945 memorandum to give legal justification for acting in ways that pre-empt parliament. In a report critical of the current government’s behaviour, the House of Lords Constitution Committee says the so-called ‘Ram doctrine’ is ‘misleading ...
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‘Back to basics’ in Brum
The new president of Birmingham Law Society, Allsopp & Co partner Martin Allsopp, does not have a computer on his desk because, he says, he wants the profession to ‘go back to basics’ and talk to clients ‘one-to-one’ again. In a nutshell, that is his ...
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Acquisitive Quindell posts big jump in profits
The stock-exchange listed company that has acquired a clutch of personal injury firms over the past year today posted a nine-fold rise in profits. Quindell Portfolio, which runs ‘end-to-end’ processes in several business sectors reported pre-tax profits of £41.2m on a turnover of £171.9m in ...
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Insurance defendant firms to merge
Two national firms are merging to create a £90m defendant insurance litigation business with more than 1,200 staff. Dispute resolution firm Greenwoods is to join insurance firm Plexus Law under the umbrella of the £150m Parabis Law group. The two firms have already signed heads of ...
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Bar: legal aid plans will ‘irreversibly undermine access’
The Bar Council has called on the Ministry of Justice to reconsider its ‘discriminatory’ legal aid cuts that it warns will ‘irreversibly undermine access to justice’ and create a two-tier service. It is urging all barristers to write to their MPs alerting them to the dangers ...
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Deadline looming to stay on the roll, SRA warns
Solicitors without a practising certificate who wish to remain on the roll have six weeks left in which to apply online, the Solicitors Regulation Authority reminded the profession today. The deadline for applications is 18 June. According to the regulator, 26% of the estimated total of ...