Latest news – Page 700
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News
Practising fee to fall 23%
The Law Society Council today approved a reduction in the individual practising certificate fee for next year of 23%, reflecting the ‘reduced funding requirement’ of the Law Society Group. The individual PC fee will drop from £428 to £328 to reflect the £94.8m net funding ...
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Mid-market firms review strategy ahead of alternative business structures
More than a third of mid-market law firms have changed their business strategies in the last year in response to the Legal Services Act. A survey of 101 firms, commissioned by legal information provider Lexis Nexis, also found that a further quarter will alter their structure ...
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ABS timetable in danger of slipping
The Solicitors Regulation Authority may not be ready to license alternative business structures from the target date of 6 October. SRA chairman Charles Plant told the regulator’s monthly board meeting today that the authority’s preparations for the change remain on schedule. ...
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Allen & Overy investigates allegations that it was tricked
Magic circle firm Allen & Overy has said it is ‘looking into’ the allegation made yesterday that it was tricked into handing over details relating to former prime minister Gordon Brown to a conman. An article in today’s Guardian newspaper claims that that lawyers at Allen ...
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IAS blames legal aid cuts for its collapse
The Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) has asked clients not to attempt to visit its offices and has blamed government legal aid cuts for going into administration. IAS, the UK’s largest provider of publicly funded immigration and asylum legal advice, went into administration over the weekend. ...
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NHS lawyers warned government that reforms would escalate its costs
NHS lawyers warned the government before it published its bill on legal aid reform that scrapping legal aid for clinical negligence claims would ‘massively’ escalate NHS legal costs, and leave some seriously injured people unable to bring cases. In its response to the government’s cost-cutting consultation ...
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ARP firms still owe £8.46m
Law firms in the Assigned Risks Pool still owe £8.46 million in premiums, despite debts falling during 2011. Outstanding premiums have come down from £9.3 million at the end of March this year as regulators clamp down on non-paying firms. The Solicitors ...
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Immigration Advisory Service in administration
The Immigration Advisory Service, a charity that gives telephone advice to 36,000 clients and opens 7,000 appeal files every year, went into administration over the weekend. Cuts to legal aid are thought to be one reason for the charity’s financial problems. According ...
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Thousands of clients ‘stranded’ following IAS collapse
The collapse of not-for-profit immigration advice provider the Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) will leave thousands of clients without representation, the Law Society warned today. IAS’s legal aid contract allowed it to take on 26,700 new cases a year. It is not ...
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‘No political will’ to reform marriage laws
There is ‘no political will’ to address the record levels of family breakdown that currently cost the country an estimated £40-100bn a year, a leading family lawyer claimed during a Law Society public debate yesterday. Ayesha Vardag, principal of London firm Vardags, one of a panel ...
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Government ‘sympathetic’ to introducing referral fee ban
The government is ‘sympathetic’ to the idea of banning referral fees, Ministry of Justice minister Lord McNally told the House of Lords yesterday. McNally said that if public opinion demands a ban, the government will respond to that demand. In ...
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LSC publishes plan for interim family contracts
The Legal Services Commission has published a plan for the tender process for new interim family contracts to start in February 2012. It proposes a non-competitive tender, meaning that all applicants meeting the minimum requirements will be awarded a contract. The ...
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SRA braced for ABS interest from abroad
The SRA has been told to prepare for increasing interest from non-English law firms following the introduction of alternative business structures.
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Solicitor-advocates make final effort to halt scheme
Solicitor-advocates have made a final effort to stop a scheme that will see judges evaluating their competence, which they claim would discriminate against solicitors. The Solicitors Association of Higher Court Advocates (SAHCA) has written to Solicitors Regulation Authority board members and called on them to veto ...
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Land Registry drops e-transfer move
The Land Registry has shelved plans to introduce electronic transfers with e-signatures, and written off nearly £11m spent developing the scheme. The Registry’s annual report, published last week, showed that it is writing off £6.4m spent developing electronic charges, signatures and transfers, and a further £4.5m ...
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Thousands of Crown court trials are 'ineffective'
Defence and prosecution lawyers are to blame for more than a third of ‘ineffective’ trials in the Crown court, according to data published by the Ministry of Justice. The Judicial and Court Statistics 2010 show that, of the 977,000 ...
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High Court backs children's guardian independence
A High Court ruling has reasserted the independence of children’s guardians from state control. In a landmark judgment, Sir Nicholas Wall said the court-appointed guardians were a vital element in protecting children. He told the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support ...
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Insurance lawyers call for lower fixed-fee rates
Insurance lawyers are pressing the Ministry of Justice to reduce the fixed-fee rates payable to claimant lawyers under the Road Traffic Accident portal. Responding to a government consultation on speeding up county court cases, which closed last week, the Forum of Insurance Lawyers said the ...
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Leading insurance broker predicts late entries in indemnity market
A leading insurance broker has predicted that there may still be late entrants to the solicitors’ professional indemnity market. Martin Ellis, director of Prime Professions, told the Gazette that some insurers had been interested in opening books for law firms until very recently. ...
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Solicitor wins right to bring age bias claim against law firm
A solicitor dismissed for failing to meet billing targets has won the right to bring an age discrimination claim against his former employer. However, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) struck out his race and sex discrimination claims. Samarasingher Methuen began working for ...