Latest news – Page 667
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News
Jailing of internet contempt juror sends ‘important message’ - Grieve
A juror who carried out internet research on a defendant has been jailed for six months. The Divisional Court, headed by the lord chief justice Lord Judge, today found university lecturer Theodora Dallas (pictured) guilty of contempt of court, following a case brought by the attorney ...
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Society contacts Cable over HSBC as Nationwide culls 'dormant' firms
The Law Society has today written an open letter to solicitors outlining its strategy and guidance for addressing HSBC’s highly controversial decision to introduce a conveyancing panel comprising just 43 firms. President John Wotton has already complained to business secretary Vince Cable, while talks took place on Wednesday this week ...
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Jackson urges caution over contingency fee cap
Lord Justice Jackson yesterday urged caution over setting limits on the percentage of damages that lawyers will be able to take in commercial cases under his reforms. The Court of Appeal judge also acknowledged that his wide-ranging changes to civil justice may not come into force ...
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Pinsent Masons in Anglo-Scottish merger talks
Top 20 London firm Pinsent Masons has confirmed it is in cross-border merger talks with Edinburgh-based McGrigors. If successful, the merger would create a business with a turnover of more than £300m, headquartered in London and with six offices across Asia. In ...
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City solicitor jailed for perverting the course of justice
A former partner of City firm Macfarlanes who claimed he was the victim of a kidnap to avoid being arrested for drink driving was today sentenced to 12 months in prison. Francis Bridgeman, 43, from Wards Lane, Wadhurst, East Sussex, was found guilty of perverting the ...
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Reprieve on special needs is first concession on legal aid bill
The government has made its first tiny concession in the House of Lords debate on proposed legal aid reforms, agreeing to table a ‘technical amendment’ to ensure all special educational needs (SEN) cases remain in scope. But justice minister Lord McNally gave little hope that ...
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PIN point a solution
I read with interest the letters from Edward Foster and CJA Cope regarding ‘the point’ of mediation. Cope ‘fails to understand how mediation can resolve a dispute which involves interpretation of [an] agreement’.
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Professional service
Geyve Walker claims to inhabit ‘the hard world of commerce’. When I became a solicitor, like Franklin Sinclair, it was into a profession and not a business that I stumbled. A professional person has a number of motivations, two of which are service and compassion. ...
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In our interests
Franklin Sinclair in the letter ‘Zero Support’ has only himself to blame. There is no purpose in having unprintable feelings or shouting about ‘outrage’ when the solution is in his own hands. The moral is: don’t do work if there is no possibility of payment. You ...
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Doomed to fail
Institutional memory in the Crown Prosecution Service is notoriously short. Many years ago, when I ran a CPS branch, some genius at CPS HQ had the same idea of a paperless office. Two bright young things visited me uttering the dreadful words ‘pilot scheme’. ...
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Dirty laundry
I cannot be the only practising solicitor who finds the various and vastly different money laundering requirements within the financial industry to be utter nonsense. In one particular estate, I am one of three executors. The other two are my senior partner and a long-standing client.
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Hundreds of court posts axed
More than 1,200 posts were cut by HM Courts and Tribunals Service last year, just as it faced an upsurge in workload caused by rising numbers of litigants in person. A response to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by the Gazette discloses that full-time equivalent ...
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Warning over minimum salary move
Junior solicitors have warned of exploitation and reduced access to the profession for the less well-off if regulators decide to ditch the minimum salary for trainees.
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Law Society to launch Advocacy Section
The Law Society will next week launch a dedicated advocacy section to build a ‘community’ of solicitor-advocates to match the level of support barristers receive from the Inns of Court. The Advocacy Section will provide mentoring, training and networking opportunities at circuit and national level, the ...
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Judge slams quality of mental health advocacy
A judge has fiercely criticised the quality of advocacy in mental health review tribunals (MHRT) as calls intensify across the profession for the compulsory accreditation of practitioners appearing for mentally ill clients. The judiciary, regulators and bodies representing mental health lawyers are all calling for membership ...
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Court of Appeal orders retrial over Bevan Ashford ‘negligence’ case
A case concerning the standard of advice expected from a newly qualified solicitor in a brief, free, consultation with a distressed client is set for a retrial following an appeal court decision. In Padden v Bevan Ashford, the Court of Appeal overruled a trial judge’s ...
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Hungarian government forces 200 judges to retire
Judicial independence in Hungary is facing its biggest threat since the country’s 1989 revolution, following the government’s decision to force 200 judges into retirement and replace them with nominees of a single politically appointed individual. This development is one of several legislative changes introduced by prime ...
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ATE insurer enters solicitors PII market
A leading after-the-event insurer has confirmed it will enter the solicitors professional indemnity insurance market this year. Elite Insurance will open a book of £3m for smaller, niche firms it has worked with in the past.
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HSBC panel ‘backlash’
The Law Society is considering ‘all possible options’ in response to what some practitioners are describing as an unprecedented backlash by high street firms over HSBC’s decision to replace its open conveyancing panel with a panel comprising just 43 firms.
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‘Insurers to blame’ for PI premium hike
The Law Society has said the insurance industry must take the blame for the rising cost of motor premiums, in a high-profile row over personal injury claims. The Commons transport select committee last week said the rising number of personal injury claims was the ‘main reason’ ...