Latest news – Page 722
-
News
Society defends in-house lawyers against EU ruling
The Law Society is to defend the status of in-house lawyers against a controversial Luxembourg ruling barring them from appearing as advocates before the European Union’s top court. The Society is to lodge an application to intervene in an appeal against a 2010 ruling by the ...
-
News
ICAEW set to regulate ABSs
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has confirmed it is applying to become a licensing authority for alternative business structures.
-
News
More solicitors make the bench
Solicitors outperformed barristers in two selection exercises for the judiciary completed earlier this year, the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) has revealed. Eleven solicitors and eight barristers were selected as district judges (magistrates’ court) and 14 solicitors and 11 barristers as lawyer chairmen of the Residential ...
-
News
Legal Ombudsman eyes voluntary jurisdiction
The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) has launched a consultation on whether to introduce a voluntary complaints-handling scheme for unreserved work. Its latest business plan discusses the establishment of a ‘voluntary jurisdiction’ for areas of the legal market where providers currently outside its remit may want to offer customers access to redress ...
-
News
US backs non-lawyer investment, but rejects ABSs
The US’s leading legal governance body has taken a step towards allowing non-lawyers to hold a financial stake in law firms, but is rejecting English-style alternative business structures.
-
News
Solicitors to work ‘unpaid’ until committals abolished in April 2012
Committals in either way criminal cases will be abolished from April 2012, the justice secretary announced today. Kenneth Clarke said the change will be effected by bringing into force schedule 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 on a phased basis. The regions where it will ...
-
News
Top 100 growing fast, Deloitte survey shows
The legal sector has been given a welcome boost after new figures showed a sharp rise in income among leading firms. The top 100 have reported an average revenue increase of nearly 10% for the second quarter ended 31 October. A survey by Deloitte showed that ...
-
News
Charities reveal qualms about seeking legal advice
Charities understand little about the law but many are put off talking to a solicitor because of worries about cost, according to a major new study. The Legal Services Consumer Panel asked more than 800 small charities about their legal needs and experiences. Responses showed ...
-
News
I didn’t forget defence solicitors, says lord chief justice
The lord chief justice has thanked defence solicitors for the ‘huge contribution’ made in the summer riot court cases, stressing that they had been included in his earlier praise of the rest of the legal profession. At his annual press conference at the Royal Courts of ...
-
News
CPS drops fraud charges in referral-fee case
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has dropped charges against 11 solicitors and doctors after an investigation into an alleged insurance fraud. The group had faced charges including conspiracy to defraud and false accounting in relation to the payment of after-the-event legal expenses premiums as well ...
-
News
Bar aiming to bypass ‘superfluous’ solicitors
Solicitors are dismissed as ‘superfluous intermediaries’ in a new bar consultation paper which recommends making it easier for the public to bypass them and instruct barristers directly. The Bar Standards Board is examining whether barristers should be able to accept direct instructions from clients eligible ...
-
News
Privacy case numbers soar
The number of public figures using privacy arguments has more than doubled over the past year as the controversy over the use of injunctions has grown, according to research from legal publisher Sweet & Maxwell. The firm’s data shows a rise from nine to 24 in ...
-
News
Sir Scott Baker made a fundamental mistake in his extradition review
It must be gratifying for Sir Scott Baker that in Joshua Rozenberg he has at least one champion for his review of the UK’s extradition laws. But Mr Rozenberg’s seems to be very much the minority view on matters of forum and our treaty with the US.
-
News
Aid imbroglio
I was recently telephoned by Bridgend Magistrates’ Court to be told that a client of mine had been arrested on warrant in respect of breaching a suspended sentence order. I arrived at court and saw my client in the cells. He informed me he was working; I completed the CDS14 ...
-
News
Inefficient emails
Emails are now at the point where they are overtaking letters as the preferred form of communication. Emails, traditionally, are more informal and ‘matey’ as well as being far more (though not completely) instantaneous. My pet bugbear is that, with their informality, many senders fail ...
-
News
Troika’s liberalisation drive ‘threatens profession’
European governments are under pressure from the so-called ‘troika’ to rush through reforms that will erode the independence of the legal profession, the Gazette has been told. The reforms include the appointment by governments of non-lawyers to supervise and regulate the profession, with the authority to set fee levels and ...
-
News
Law firms urged to set pro bono hours target
The time has come for a debate on whether firms should set ‘aspirational’ targets for the number of pro bono hours worked by their lawyers and staff, the attorney general’s pro bono envoy has suggested. Michael Napier QC, who is also senior partner at national ...
-
News
ABS ‘threat’ to in-house legal teams
In-house legal teams will be vulnerable to replacement by services run by outsourcing businesses, such as Capita and Serco, once the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is able to license alternative business structures (ABSs).
-
News
'Sea change’ for county court claims
All claims to county courts are to be processed through a central facility in a ‘massive sea change’ designed to slash costs and processing times, the Gazette can reveal. From March, solicitors will no longer need to mail claims with a cheque to individual courts, ...
-
News
Peers target third-party capture
Peers debating civil litigation reform have called for a crackdown on the so-called ‘third-party capture’ practice of insurers approaching claimants directly. Four members of the House of Lords tabled amendments on the subject last week during the second reading of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment ...