Latest news – Page 748
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News
SRA appoints former Linklaters partner as chief City adviser
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has appointed a former magic circle lawyer to advise it on the regulation of City law firms. The SRA also announced today that six firms of various sizes will take part in its pilot of outcomes-focused regulation. Nick Eastwell, a former partner ...
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Lawyers suffer from ‘information overload’
‘Information overload’ is causing UK lawyers to under-bill for the work they do, a new survey has suggested. Research at work is now taking so long that 45% of UK legal professionals sometimes do not bill for the time they spend on it, according to the ...
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Consumers ‘crowded out’ of small claims process
Businesses are monopolising small claims courts and crowding out the people the courts were designed to help, a consumer watchdog has warned. A report by national consumer champion Consumer Focus warns that business is ‘clogging up’ the small claims courts and causing delays for individual claimants. ...
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Consumer’s voice in legal reforms under threat
The Legal Services Consumer Panel has warned the government against pressing ahead with its ‘surprise’ plans to merge it with campaigning group Citizens Advice, at what it said was a ‘crucial period in legal services reforms’.
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Young report seeks to curb ‘compensation culture’
The volume and content of personal injury advertising should be controlled, but there will be no outright ban, Lord Young (pictured) has recommended in his report on the ‘compensation culture’ published today. In Common Sense, Common Safety, Young also proposes that the road traffic accident (RTA) ...
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Legal services reforms will create ‘tougher market’, says LSB
The ‘competitive effect’ of new players coming into the market from October next year will mean that ‘existing firms need to improve their levels of service [and] focus on consumers, to be able to compete in a tougher marketplace’, Legal Services Board chairman David Edmonds has said.
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Court of Appeal confirms limits to legal professional privilege
The Court of Appeal today unanimously confirmed that legal professional privilege (LPP) only applies to qualified lawyers – solicitors and barristers. The decision was welcomed by the Law Society as giving certainty to solicitors and their clients.
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Double take
The picture on page 12 of the 23 September Gazette also adorns the front cover of August’s journal of the Law Society of Scotland. Apparently, September’s vexed-looking figure is no longer concerned about the Cadder effect (so called because of a Scots case to do with a suspect’s access to ...
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Relaxation leads to risk
Stricter controls on financial advisers and stricter controls on banks – all designed to protect the public. At the same time the government is ready to throw legal services open to the wider market. Could it be that it is missing something rather obvious – ...
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LSB must address unsavoury tactics
I noted the items in the Gazette of 7 October relating to referral fees and legal expenses insurance. There are some insurers with whom it is a pleasure to work. However the behaviour of others does give cause for concern. For example: ...
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Higher rights advocates - we need evidence for further regulation
I was delighted to read Legal Services Consumer Panel chair Dr Dianne Hayter’s commitment to the reduction of regulation and her call for the expansion of consumer choice.
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Appointing legal executives to bench will diminish respect for judiciary
I read with dismay that a legal executive has been appointed as a deputy district judge. David McGrady, president of the Institute of Legal Executives, welcomes the appointment. I do not. I have been in practice as a solicitor for 41 years, following my father ...
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Family lawyers await LSC appeal move
Uncertainty mounted over the future of family legal aid contracts this week, as solicitors await a decision by the Legal Services Commission on whether it will appeal a High Court ruling that its tender process was unlawful. Some firms that did win contracts in the tender ...
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Herts firm to sue over conveyancing panel removal
A Hertfordshire firm that was removed from the Santander and Lloyds Banking Group conveyancing panels is seeking support to take legal action against the lenders, the Gazette has learned. Paul Judkins, a partner at Judkins, with offices in Hertford and Cheshunt, is seeking advice from counsel ...
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Accountants to apply for probate rights
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has begun its second application to the Legal Services Board for a probate services licence, with takeup expected to be high among small accountancy firms. The institute announced its intention to apply for the licence last week. ...
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Venue hire, Liverpool FC, banking, and sukuk issue
Venue hire: Sports law firm Couchmans advised Barclays on becoming the official retail bank at London’s O2 Arena. Fair Kop: US firm Shearman & Sterling advised New England Sports Ventures, which ...
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Firms may have folded to avoid high cost of PII premiums
A leading market expert has estimated that up to 175 firms closed their doors ahead of this month’s professional indemnity insurance (PII) renewal deadline rather than face the high cost of premiums, while a handful of firms are believed to be trading illegally because they cannot afford cover.
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US delays ABS decisions
A decision in the US on whether or not to allow UK alternative business structures to operate across the Atlantic is unlikely to be made until well after 2012, the new American Bar Association (ABA) president Stephen Zack told the Gazette in an interview this week. ...
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Banks to seek assurances from LLPs
The era of banks making unsecured credit freely available to firms may come to an end as banks review the risk profile of practices that have converted to LLP status, it was suggested last week. Chris Marston, head of professional practices at Lloyds TSB, told delegates ...
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Lawyers must protect vulnerable from effect of budget cuts – Djanogly
Lawyers and the legal system will need to find efficiencies and new ways of working to protect the vulnerable from the effects of budget cuts, legal aid minister Jonathan Djanogly told the Gazette this week. He said: ‘Our priority is not what lawyers do, or ...