Latest news – Page 737
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Motion to widen Society membership withdrawn
Law Society Council member Derek French withdrew his motion proposing to allow barristers and legal executives to become members of the Law Society, at the Society’s council last week. However, French said the Society’s Membership Board has agreed to prepare a paper on the issue, which ...
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Linklaters tops diversity league table
Magic circle firm Linklaters has topped a league table based on a survey of the demographic diversity of 48 leading law firms, published today. City firms Baker & McKenzie, Norton Rose and Trowers & Hamlins came second, third and fourth respectively. The ...
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FSA raises protection for client accounts
Client money held in solicitors’ bank accounts has been given greater protection in the event of a bank collapse, after the Financial Services Authority unveiled rule changes today. Implementing a European Commission directive, the City regulator upped the cap on the compensation available for deposits that ...
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MPs warned they will be ‘overloaded’ due to legal aid cuts
A group campaigning against the government’s legal aid cuts has sent Christmas cards to MPs warning them that they could be overwhelmed with constituents’ problems. Justice for All, a coalition of legal and advice agencies, politicians, trade unions, community groups and members of the public, said ...
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Lost generation?
I write as a parent who happens to be a solicitor. Hurrah for Mr Justice Coleridge (tinyurl.com/32xekfd). It is so refreshing to hear a judge talking openly about what is a serious and untackled malaise. He has demonstrated quite clearly the detrimental effects of raising children as your ‘best friends’ ...
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Roll on retirement
My 9 December Gazette arrived late because of inclement weather. Just as well. Last week, I was in a really bad mood. Now, I’m just cross.
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CQS needs teeth
Paul Marsh is quite right, in talking about the Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS), when he says ‘it is crucial that good firms of whatever size are able to compete on quality and not just on price with substandard firms’. We are a Lexcel-accredited firm with 25 ...
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Confrontation not consultation
In her latest column, the Law Society president urges us all to stand up and fight for access to justice against the threatened legal aid cuts. She writes: ‘This really is a process of genuine consultation; it is not a done deal and we still have all to play for’. ...
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Aluminium deal, London IT, Euro 2012 football, healthcare and telecoms
UEFA on track: The London office of French firm Salans advised European real estate investment management firm Meyer Bergman on a €200m (£169m) joint venture to redevelop the main railway station in Katowice, Poland, in preparation for the UEFA Euro 2012 football tournament. ...
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Solicitor-advocate training 'not fit for purpose'
The training given to solicitor-advocates is ‘not fit for purpose’ and must be improved to conquer the perception that they are inferior to barristers, according to an independent review. In a report commissioned by the Law Society, consultant Nick Smedley said that, unless the training of ...
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'Unrelenting' pressure on Court of Appeal
The Court of Appeal is facing ‘unrelenting’ pressure from increased demand and reduced resources, the lord chief justice has warned. In his foreword to the court’s annual report, published today, Lord Justice Judge (pictured) paid tribute to the judges who work ‘late into the night ...
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Legal aid tender quality checks 'flawed'
The High Court ruled this week that the process used to check the quality standards of firms awarded public law and mental health legal aid contracts breached equality standards, but there was ‘no legal flaw’ in the Legal Services Commission’s public law tender.
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FOIL president: cut claimant lawyer fees
Claimant personal injury lawyers’ fees should be cut by extending the new road traffic accident (RTA) claims process, and by allowing insurance companies to undertake ‘third-party capture’, the new president of the Forum of Insurance Lawyers (FOIL) told the Gazette this week.
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Legal aid backlog leaves some defendants unrepresented
Delays in processing legal aid applications are leaving some defendants in London’s Crown and magistrates’ courts unrepresented, criminal solicitors have warned. Malcolm Duxbury, president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association, told the Gazette there is a ‘very large’ backlog in processing and assessing Crown court ...
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Solicitor who 'shamed profession' jailed
A solicitor who ‘brought shame on the profession’ has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years at Croydon Crown Court for his part in an immigration scam. Adeyinka Adeniran, 39, a principal at London firm Julius Ceasar, supplied clients and documents to a bogus college located at a ...
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Students get murder case referred back to Court of Appeal
A group from the University of Bristol have become the first students to succeed in having the case of a convicted murderer referred back to the Court of Appeal through the university’s Innocence Project. The students convinced the Criminal Cases Review Commission to refer the case ...
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Law firms face new year 'cash crunch'
Law firms will face a ‘cash crunch’ at the end of January, but are likely to find it difficult to source finance from their banks, experts warned this week The news came as the Solicitors Regulation Authority revealed that it wrote to the top 50 law ...
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Green paper warning from mental health professionals
The government’s pledge to divert mentally ill people away from the criminal justice system and towards health services is ‘strong on rhetoric’, but understates the extent of the problem, mental health professionals have warned. Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke’s green paper on sentencing and rehabilitation, published this ...
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£1bn paid out to law firms for handling coal miners’ claims
Some 19 law firms each received more than £10m in fees for handling claims on behalf of former coal miners who contracted lung disease in the course of their work, parliamentary records show. More than 500 firms handled at least one claim for chronic obstructive pulmonary ...
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City claims EC proposal would 'dilute English law'
A European Commission proposal to consolidate contract law across the EU would hamper international trade by diluting the strength of English law, City lawyers have warned. Responding to a Ministry of Justice call for evidence on a European Commission green paper proposing a new European contract ...