Latest news – Page 621
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News
Council fined for lawyer’s error
A city council has been fined £120,000 after one of its solicitors sent a series of emails relating to a child protection legal case to the wrong address. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found Stoke-on-Trent Council in serious breach of the Data Protection Act after 11 ...
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Bar regulator confirms move into ABSs
The Bar Standards Board has confirmed it will apply to the Legal Services Board (pictured) to become a licensing authority of alternative business structures in the new year, and could approve its first ABS in early 2014. At a board meeting last week, the bar’s regulator ...
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Salford claims centre rates poorly with solicitors
Almost two-thirds of users of the Salford civil claims centre rate the service as poor, according to a survey reflecting continued frustration with the new central facility. The figure is among the findings of a poll of 47 legal firms, 40 of which ...
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Court interpreter mess ‘led to custody’, MPs told
Defendants are being remanded in custody solely because court interpreters have not been sent by the company contracted by the Ministry of Justice to provide them, a parliamentary committee heard this week. Giving evidence to the Justice Committee, the chair of the Law Society’s criminal law ...
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PPI text spammers face £250k fines
Originators of spam text messages soliciting PPI and personal injury claims are in line for £250,000 fines. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will announce this week whether it will issue the penalty – the first for spam texts – against two individuals who it believes are responsible for millions of ...
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Todner legal aid fear
Gary McKinnon’s solicitor has described the future for criminal legal aid firms as ‘very scary’, amid swingeing cuts and payment problems. Karen Todner, who was last week named the Gazette’s Legal Personality of the Year, said: ‘The system is so restrictive in terms of running a business.’ ...
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Litigation funder targets case ‘portfolios’
One of the UK’s biggest litigation funders is in talks with law firms about using alternative business structures to invest in a ‘portfolio’ of their commercial litigation. The move by Harbour Litigation Funding signals what is expected to become a closer relationship between law firms and ...
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Human trafficking victims failed by defence teams, CCRC alleges
Many victims of human trafficking are being failed by defence teams, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) warned this week. All have ignored clear law in numerous prosecutions, it alleges. The commission says there are numerous cases where inadequate ...
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Aggressive lawyers ‘harm mediation’
Aggression around the mediation table can be counter-productive and damage your client’s chances of success, a leading QC has warned. Bill Wood, vice-chair of the Civil Mediation Council, said he had experienced cases where the two lawyers involved were more angry than the clients. Wood told ...
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Civil rights concern over costs-shifting
Lawyers representing claimants against the police have warned that abuses of state power will go unchallenged under costs reforms coming into force in April. The Police Actions Lawyers Group wants qualified one-way costs-shifting extended from personal injury to cover all civil liberties cases.
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UK contingent in Brazil
The Law Society will tell the Brazilian legal sector today that Britain is the place to turn to for international dispute resolution, as it leads a contingent of UK law firms to São Paulo. President Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, whose visit coincides with the Lord Mayor’s trip to ...
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Wider pool of barristers no threat
In focusing on perceived competition between the two branches of the profession (‘"Baby barrister" threat to solicitors’), what Catherine Baksi overlooks are the opportunities for co-operation between barristers and solicitors created by the Public Access Scheme. The bar’s code of conduct requires barristers instructed on a public access basis to ...
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QASA curtailment beggars belief
I read each week with growing dismay about the long-running saga of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. This misconceived and unwelcome intrusion into the liberties of our profession may one day restrict, if not deny, our hard-won rights of audience in the higher courts.
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Off centre
Taking up where Nye Moloney left off, I have found the County Court Money Claims Centre (CCMCC) to be lacking. I am uncertain as to how the interaction between the centre and the Northampton Bulk Issue Centre pans out in practice.
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Support costs
Once upon a time we filled in the form to renew our annual practising certificates by hand and then continued to do proper work. Now the Gazette brims with articles on the regulatory process and how to live with it. Charles Plant tells us the ...
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Expensive Saga
At the sort of prices Saga is quoting I do not think the average high street conveyancer should lose any sleep. I just obtained a quote from Saga for a freehold sale at £150k and a freehold purchase at £250k – a typical, everyday transaction outside ...
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Profit a ‘dirty word’ in law, says Dragon’s Den judge
Entrepreneur and investor James Caan has revealed he found a culture where profit was a ‘dirty word’ when he looked to buy a law firm. Former Dragons Den judge Caan, whose private investment company Hamilton Bradshaw bought Midlands firm Knights in June, said he had spoken ...
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Mediation is the future, Falconer says
The Supreme Court’s equal pay ruling yesterday will lead to ‘billions and billions worth of claims’ Labour’s former lord chancellor has predicted. Lord Falconer (pictured) suggested that such claims be mediated rather than leaving them to the ‘vagaries of the legal system’, which he said would be costly and could ...
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Five years on: progress ‘largely static’ towards LSA nirvana
The Legal Services Act has made little difference to standards in the profession, according to a report released today by the Legal Services Board. The baseline report, published five years since the act, found that indicators such as diversity, quality of service and access to legal ...
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Urgent action call over child deaths in custody
Two national charities have called for an urgent independent review of ‘systemic failings’ that have led to the deaths of 200 imprisoned children and young people over the past decade. In a report published today, Inquest and the Prison Reform Trust recommend 13 changes to address ...