Latest news – Page 580
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News
SRA wants compensation fund to cover intervention bill
The SRA has decided not to impose a one-off levy on solicitors to pay for the rising cost of intervening in failed firms, but wants the multimillion-pound bill to fall on the rapidly diminishing compensation fund instead.
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SRA getting better at complaints – independent assessor
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has ‘significantly improved’ how it deals with complaints about its service, an independent assessor has concluded. The Independent Complaints Review Service (ICRS) upheld or partially upheld 75 cases out of 245 separate complaints issued from October 2011 to the end of 2012. ...
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Collapse of banking deal won’t affect legal services, says Co-op
Co-operative Legal Services (CLS) has insisted that the collapse of the Co-operative Group’s planned purchase of 632 Lloyds Banking Group branches will have no bearing on its legal services expansion. The Co-op revealed today that it had withdrawn from the process, blaming the economic environment and ...
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CPS: Keir Starmer to step down after five-year term
Keir Starmer QC will step down as director of public prosecutions later this year, the Crown Prosecution Service announced today. Former human rights barrister Starmer, 51, who took up the post in 2008, has indicated that he will not seek to extend his five-year term of ...
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May unveils bilateral treaty to deal with Qatada
The proposed treaty with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan that home secretary Theresa May announced today as part of her continuing efforts to deport suspected terrorist Abu Qatada excludes the use of evidence obtained through torture and also allows for the press and public to be excluded from a trial ...
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Revealed: Grayling's plan to drive a wedge between bar and solicitors
Justice secretary Chris Grayling has sought to drive a wedge between solicitors and barristers over the drastic plans to cut criminal legal aid and restructure the market, the Gazette has learned. At a meeting attended by circuit leaders and civil servants yesterday, Grayling said that ...
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QASA gets go-ahead from bar regulator
The Bar Standards Board has approved the handbook for the controversial Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. At the regulator’s meeting last night, lay member Malcolm Cohen was the sole dissenting voice. He told the board: ‘The scheme is not proportionate to the perceived risk and I ...
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MoJ announces new deal for courtroom interpreters
The Ministry of Justice today announced measures which it said would increase the take-home pay of interpreters in a bid to improve the quality of the service to courts and the justice sector.
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Whiplash claims at five-year low, official figures reveal
The number of whiplash claims has fallen by almost 60,000 in the past year, according to the government’s own figures. A freedom of information request to the Department for Work and Pensions’ compensation recovery unit has revealed there were 488,281 whiplash claims in Great Britain in ...
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Society warns against muddling funding for interventions
The Law Society has called for ‘proper transparency’ if regulators are to pay intervention costs out of compensation fund reserves. The Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed on Wednesday it wants to cover an estimated £7m overspend on interventions this year by using money held in the compensation fund. The SRA says ...
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Chris Grayling: criminal ignorance
Chris Grayling’s comments about the restriction of legal aid for prisoner complaints are either another example of political posturing from the justice secretary or, more worryingly, show an alarming ignorance of how such cases have been funded for over three years.
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Competition flaw
There are a number of difficulties and risks associated with the government’s proposals on price-competitive tendering. I am sure that the representative bodies will do an effective job of highlighting many of these flaws. I wish to highlight a major operational risk.
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‘Client’ care
Adam Sampson (8 April) decries the use of the word ‘client’ in favour of ‘customer’. Despite him possibly confusing Julius Caesar with Cicero as a renowned lawyer in the Roman courts, Mr Sampson should be wary of rejecting the client relationship. In classical times there was a mutuality of obligation ...
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Qualified success
This profession has been squeezed to bursting point through government and consumer pressure. The new legal brands promise the world for half the price of ‘conventional’ firms, but how realistic is that? Efficiency through IT and management processes may allow legal services to be provided more cheaply, but the biggest ...
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Tendering proposals an ‘attack on justice’
Solicitors this week condemned the government’s proposed criminal legal aid reforms as impractical and an attack on the quality of justice. Richard Atkinson (pictured), chair of the Law Society’s criminal law committee, said plans to introduce price-competitive tendering for criminal defence work are ‘unworkable’ for firms ...
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ABS delay frustrating for Scottish lawyers
Firms in Scotland are growing increasingly frustrated by delays to the advent of alternative business structures north of the border, according to senior lawyers. The Law Society of Scotland confirmed last week that its plans to be an approved regulator of the new entities are on ...
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Firm defends police officer Kelly Jones in kerb claim
The personal injury firm at the centre of a media furore over a claimant police officer has insisted its client is right to press on with the case. National firm Pattinson & Brewer said Norfolk officer PC Kelly Jones is continuing with a claim against a ...
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Trust is ‘key to breaking South Africa legal market’
Long-term relationships are all-important when breaking into the South African legal services market, a UK lawyer has advised on the eve of a Law Society-led delegation’s visit to Cape Town. Kerry Underwood, senior partner of Hertfordshire firm Underwoods, who has been lecturing and practising in South ...
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Europe reviews cross-border claims
The European Commission is to review the operation of a cross-border claims service, after admitting it has failed to make an impression with consumers. The European Small Claims Procedure was launched four years ago to resolve cross-border disputes worth less than €2,000. ...
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Judiciary ‘not ready’ for Jackson reforms
A High Court judge has told parties involved in some clinical negligence claims to ignore the Jackson reforms for at least six months. A practice note written last month and distributed to law firms by Master Roberts, one of two High Court clinical negligence masters, revealed ...