Latest news – Page 606
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Lawyers fight town hall cuts
A group of City pro bono lawyers is taking aim at local authority cuts affecting vulnerable elderly and disabled residents. The lawyers will scrutinise care fee contracts that councils seek to vary, and bring judicial reviews of cuts estimated to add up to £1bn. ...
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Speeding up cases ‘risks miscarriages of justice’
Government plans to speed up criminal cases risk ‘significantly’ increasing the number of miscarriages of justice, the Law Society warned this week. Responding to a white paper setting out planned reforms of the criminal justice system, the Society stressed that dealing with cases swiftly must be ...
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Grayling: No U-turn on pensions
The lord chancellor has refused calls to reconsider cuts to judicial pensions. Chris Grayling told the Lords constitution committee last week that exempting judges from austerity would ‘make them the target of public hostility’. Grayling also rebuffed peers’ calls for a statutory duty on the lord chief justice to create ...
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News Focus: RTA fees
Government plans to wipe £700 from each fixed fee paid in low-value personal injury cases will put firms out of business, increase the risk of negligence and harm victims of accidents, solicitors have warned.
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Professional priorities
James Caan, described as a private equity investor, is reported in your issue of 1 November as complaining that the solicitors’ profession is ‘reluctant to prioritise making money’. If this is true, then the situation is much better than I had feared. Surely a reluctance to ...
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Novel idea
It sounds as though Peter Elliott (‘Litigants in person "need more support"’) is asking for some sort of state-funded legal assistance, in order to ensure that everyone has access to justice. What a novel idea. I am not sure it will ever catch on with the powers that be. ...
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Implement Jackson reforms for media litigation, says Leveson
A call for Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals on costs to be introduced for defamation, privacy, breach of confidence ‘and similar media-related litigation’ appears in the Leveson report on the press published today. In his report, Lord Justice Leveson proposes a new law to create an independent ...
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CJC member rules out mandatory litigation funding code
There are no plans to change the voluntary code for third-party litigation funding, according to one of its creators. Professor Rachael Mulheron, a member of the Civil Justice Council, said the code was still appropriate one year on from its adoption. Speaking ...
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SRA falls short of 45-second target
The Solicitors Regulation Authority failed to answer 25% of calls to its professional ethics helpline within 45 seconds in the third quarter of 2012, the organisation revealed this week, a year after the service began. Board papers said that 13,480 calls were answered out of ...
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SRA reviews cases for race disparity
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published details of an investigation into whether black and minority ethnic (BME) solicitors are being treated fairly by the regulator. Terms of reference have been agreed for a comparative case review, which the organisation said is ‘designed to further ...
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Text spamming fine puts claims farmers on notice
The Information Commissioner’s Office today fined two owners of a marketing company £440,000 after they plagued the public with millions of spam texts. The ICO used its power to issue a monetary penalty for the first time after the pair were found to have breached the ...
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Telephone advice contract goes to Co-op
Co-operative Legal Services is among the 12 firms to have been awarded new telephone advice contracts by the Legal Services Commission, it was announced today. The Co-op, together with national firm Duncan Lewis and Cardiff-based Access Legal Training, were awarded the three contracts for family advice. ...
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Claimant lawyers ‘killed the golden goose’ - ABI
A top insurance industry lobbyist has claimed that claimant lawyers will have only themselves to blame for reduced profits having ‘killed the goose that laid the golden egg’. James Dalton, head of motor and liability at the Association of British Insurers, accused the claimant community of ...
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Former attorney general says Grayling ‘failed’ test
The lord chancellor has failed in his duty to uphold the law - by proclaiming parliamentary sovereignty over the issue of prisoner voting, according to a Labour former attorney general. In a strong attack on Chris Grayling, Lord Goldsmith calls attention to the lord chancellor’s ...
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LSB chair wants more cash for research
The head of the Legal Services Board has claimed the group’s £250,000 research budget is ‘not enough’. LSB chairman David Edmonds revealed that funding for research projects is being cut by 17% in the next financial year as the regulator is encouraged to work more in ...
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Committee warns on cameras in court
A parliamentary committee has voiced ‘serious concerns’ over government plans to broadcast court proceedings and called for a more cautious approach. In its report published today, the joint parliamentary human rights committee says that it agrees with the government’s objective of making justice as transparent and ...
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Mis-selling fear as SRA moves to relax rules on financial advice
Solicitors are to be allowed to refer clients onto any financial adviser, regardless of whether they are independent or not. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is set this week to relax the rule insisting lawyers’ clients can be referred only to independent advisers. ...
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Isle of Man funder to boost investment in litigation
A litigation funder backed by a private equity investor says it may increase its £100m investment next year due to high demand. Vannin Capital, based on the Isle of Man, announced in May it would quadruple its investment facility over six months with backing from private ...
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Society welcomes College of Law metamorphosis
Leading legal figures have welcomed the metamorphosis of private equity-owned College of Law into Britain’s first for-profit university. The college announced yesterday that ministers had granted it permission to be known as The University of Law.
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Write clearer judgments, Neuberger urges judges
Judgments must be clearer and more concise if the public is to retain confidence in the justice system, according to president of the Supreme Court Lord Neuberger. In the annual Bailii lecture this week, Neuberger said the increasing appearance of the self-represented litigant has accelerated the ...