Latest news – Page 631

  • News

    Accutrainee welcomes first recruit

    6 September 2012

    A groundbreaking scheme that finds trainees and seconds them to law firms on a temporary basis has welcomed its first recruit. Flora Hussey has become the first trainee to sign up to Accutrainee since it was launched last September. Trainees are taken on by Accutrainee but ...

  • News

    Admiral reveals referral fee income

    6 September 2012

    Insurance giant Admiral has revealed that it rakes in £7 in personal injury referral fees for every vehicle it covers. The figure appears in the company’s half-year financial report, which lists modest increases in ‘other revenue’, including income from referral fees. Admiral insures 3.5m cars in ...

  • News

    Oligarch case whets appetite for more

    6 September 2012

    A leading City lawyer says he would welcome more foreign litigation coming to London after the conclusion of a high-profile case involving two Russian oligarchs. The High Court last week found that exiled Russian Boris Berezovsky (pictured) had no claim to the business interests of Roman ...

  • News

    Law Society warning over 'monopoly' interpreting deals

    6 September 2012

    The Law Society has warned of the ‘inherent risk’ in granting a monopoly contract to a single provider of courtroom interpreting, but said it lacks sufficient evidence to judge whether the contract awarded to Applied Language Solutions caused a ‘major structural problem’. Responding to the justice ...

  • News

    ABS newcomer eyes conveyancing panels

    6 September 2012

    A conveyancing sole practitioner has become an alternative business structure – in a bid to get on to lenders’ conveyancing panels. Nicola Phillips, who has run her own firm in Horsham since 2008, told the Gazette that her status as a sole practitioner has excluded her from panels including those ...

  • News

    BSB chastised over ‘bad’ misconduct findings

    6 September 2012

    The first barrister to set up a legal disciplinary practice has overturned her convictions for breaching Bar Standards Board codes on conducting litigation in a public access case. Portia O’Connor (pictured) set up Pegasus Legal Research in 2010. In May 2011 she was convicted by ...

  • News

    Legislative presumption of shared parenting ‘flawed’

    6 September 2012

    Government plans to introduce a legislative presumption of shared parenting could undermine child welfare and increase the volume of litigation, according to the Law Society. Responding to a Ministry of Justice consultation which closed this week, the Society said the government’s proposal to promote co-operative parenting ...

  • News

    Law firms 'cut out' of LPO market

    6 September 2012

    The annual global market in outsourcing legal processes has passed the psychologically important billion-dollar (£630m) mark, a market survey claims this week. The 2012 Global LPO Market Study, published by New York-based consultancy The LPO Program, says legal process outsourcing (LPO) employs some 9,000 people. ...

  • News

    Automatic fines ‘top of shopping list’ for SRA

    6 September 2012

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority will call on the government for permission to impose on-the-spot fines for firms that fail to comply with regulatory deadlines. Hundreds of firms are thought to have failed to submit nominations for compliance officers more than a month after a deadline ...

  • News

    Call for ‘sanity’ on whiplash as claim numbers fall

    6 September 2012

    Lawyers have called for a rethink on whiplash injury compensation after the government’s own figures showed that the number of claims fell by almost 24,000 last year. Records uncovered by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) showed 547,405 claims for whiplash in 2011/12, compared with ...

  • News

    Consumers may sue traders before national courts

    6 September 2012

    European Union (EU) consumers may bring proceedings before the courts in their own member state against traders in other member states even if they had visited the trader to conclude the contract, the EU’s top court has ruled. The ruling takes into account a 2002 amendment ...

  • News

    Find your own referral-fee workarounds, SRA tells firms

    5 September 2012

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned that it will not provide law firms with ‘safe harbour’ guidance to deal with the forthcoming referral fee ban. In a discussion paper released yesterday, the regulator says solicitors and firms should be able to work out from the legislation ...

  • News

    Fresh faces at justice ministry after reshuffle

    5 September 2012

    A criminal law barrister and former Labour-supporting law firm founder are among the new faces at the Ministry of Justice after a sweeping reshuffle of ministerial posts. After replacing Kenneth Clarke with Christopher Grayling as justice secretary, Downing Street confirmed this morning that ministers Crispin Blunt, ...

  • News

    ‘Cutting edge’ approach to ethics needed - LSB

    5 September 2012

    Proposals to monitor ethics across an increasingly diverse legal services market are set out by the Legal Services Board (LSB) today. Its report says that ensuring the integrity of the profession in this way is central to maintaining public confidence in the rule of law.

  • News

    Cameron turns right in sweeping justice reshuffle

    4 September 2012

    Prime minister David Cameron has confirmed that Chris Grayling will become justice secretary in what was emerging as a comprehensive clear-out of ministers at the Ministry of Justice. Earlier today Kenneth Clarke became a high-profile casualty of Cameron’s first major reshuffle since coming to office. ...

  • News

    Jersey court endorses third-party funding

    4 September 2012

    The Royal Court of Jersey has once again endorsed the legitimate role of litigation funding in bringing cases on the island.

  • News

    SRA considers lighter touch for whistleblowers

    4 September 2012

    Whistleblowers who give evidence against colleagues suspected of misconduct may be offered a more lenient punishment for their own involvement under new Solicitors Regulation Authority guidelines. The regulator is this week expected to approve proposals to offer mitigation to witnesses who come forward.

  • News

    SRA urges advocates to register as deadline looms

    3 September 2012

    Three weeks before the deadline under the quality assurance scheme for advocates (QASA), a quarter of criminal advocates have not yet notified the Solicitors Regulation Authority of their intention to practise after 2013, the regulator has revealed. By 21 September all solicitors and regulated European lawyers ...

  • News

    Insurers fight uplift ruling

    3 September 2012

    The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has appealed against the Court of Appeal’s decision to increase general damages. Three senior judges ruled in July that a 10% uplift to be applied to all personal injury awards from April 2013 applies also to cases launched before that ...

  • News

    Lawyers berate new law criminalising squatters

    31 August 2012

    Lawyers have branded as ‘headline-grabbing’ and unnecessary the introduction of a new criminal offence of squatting, warning that it could harm vulnerable people. But the government is unrepentant, declaring that the move signals the end of ‘squatters’ rights’. Justice minister Crispin Blunt (pictured) confirmed ...