Latest news – Page 775
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News
LSC begins phased rollout of eForms
Criminal law solicitors this week voiced concerns over the Legal Services Commission’s track record on IT projects, as it began a phased national rollout of its new electronic criminal billing and claim forms. The new eForms are part of the LSC’s delivery transformation programme, designed to ...
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Criminal law firm start-ups confound cull predictions
Government proposals to reduce the number of criminal law firms have not deterred new firms from setting up, according to specialist legal aid consultants. Simon Pottinger, founder of JRS Consultants, predicted that the number of firms with a criminal legal aid contract is likely to have ...
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Eversheds to fight employment tribunal bias ruling
National firm Eversheds last week lodged an appeal against an Employment Tribunal ruling that it must pay £123,300 in compensation to a male associate who suffered sexual discrimination during the firm’s 2009 redundancy programme. The tribunal found that former real estate associate John de Belin was ...
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Technical problems continue to dog RTA claims portal
Technical problems are continuing to hamper the new road traffic accident (RTA) information exchange, set up to handle hundreds of thousands of low-value RTA claims. Solicitors told the Gazette this week that some have still not received access codes for the new RTA claims portal despite ...
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Law firms reveal impact of recession in benchmarking survey
Small to medium-sized law firms axed nearly one in 10 staff as the recession bit and profit per equity partner plunged by a quarter, new research shows. However, market conditions have improved in recent months, with firms starting to hire again and revenues expected to remain stable in 2010. ...
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Chelsea and Yorkshire to review conveyancing panels
Chelsea and Yorkshire building societies are to conduct a review of their conveyancing panels following the merger of the two lenders last month, the Gazette has learned. The merger, which created the second largest building society in the country, was completed on 1 April. ...
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Quinn administrators recommend closure of PII arm
The administrators of Quinn Insurance have recommended that the Irish insurer’s professional indemnity insurance (PII) business in the UK should close for good, the Gazette has learned. Administrators Grant Thornton told the Gazette that in their proposals to the Irish Financial Regulator, which regulates Quinn, they ...
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Solicitor and firm fined £400,000 for aiding share scam
The senior partner at London firm Atlantic Law has been banned by the City watchdog from working in financial services and along with his firm, fined £400,000 in total for ‘recklessly’ signing off adverts issued by Spanish fraudsters.
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New scheme to target personal injury claims
A new national legal partnership, Loyalty Law, is set to launch next month to generate personal injury leads for high-street firms, the Gazette can reveal. Around 30 firms have already signed up to ...
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Co-op launches new service for insurers
Co-operative Legal Services has today launched a ‘one-call accident management service’ for brokers and insurers in a bid increase its motor claims work. The new service will offer the full range of services – legal and non-legal – needed to resolve claims following a road traffic ...
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Lawyers sceptical over latest IT rollout by LSC
Criminal law solicitors have expressed concerns over the Legal Services Commission’s track record on IT projects as it began a phased national rollout of its new electronic criminal billing and claim forms this month. The new eForms are part of the LSC’s delivery transformation programme, designed ...
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Capture conflict
‘It is in everyone's interests to have a low cost system,’ a director of the Association of British Insurers told the annual conference of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (Gazette news, 29 April, 4). Like most people, I do want to believe what I am told by people who ...
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Forgotten group disadvantaged by PC fee
I write regarding your opinion piece of 24 April headlined ‘PC fee proposal falls flat’.
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Public fails to chart financial assets in wills
Nearly three-quarters of the British public do not have a will that clearly charts their financial assets, research has revealed. Some 73% of Britons have not documented financial assets such as pension plans and life insurance policies in their wills, a YouGov survey of 2,384 adults, ...
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Spike in mergers predicted in 2010
The year ahead is likely to see a spike in mergers and team hires among the top 100 law firms, with 20% looking to expand overseas, according to research published this week. Sweet & Maxwell’s annual survey of law firm finance directors reveals that 40% of ...
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APIL urges government to increase access to compensation
The next government must provide injured workers with enhanced access to compensation, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) said as a government consultation, Accessing Compensation, closed today. APIL urged the incoming government to ensure that plans laid down by the Department for Work and Pensions ...
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Equal treatment
I read in the Gazette of 22 April that the Co-operative Group is planning to promote its legal services and become an alternative business structure (see [2010] Gazette, 22 April, 4).
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Partner promotions up at top City firms
Top City law firms have upped their partner promotions this year, in what appears to be a good round for City lawyers. As the Gazette went to press, only two City firms outside the magic circle, Norton Rose and Denton Wilde Sapte, and two within ...
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FTSE-100 group attacks ECJ ruling on Akzo Nobel appeal
The group that represents in-house counsel at FTSE 100 companies has attacked a preliminary ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on legal privilege rights for in-house lawyers as illogical and ‘flawed’. The GC100 said it was ‘very disappointed’ by advocate general Juliane Kokott’s opinion ...
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Chancery Lane condemns criticism of Chinese human rights lawyers
Two Chinese human rights lawyers face losing their licences to practise law following ‘absurd’ accusations by Beijing Municipal Judicial Bureau that they had behaved illegally in court. Chinese human rights lawyers Tang Jitian and Liu Wei, who represented a follower of the Falun Gong movement in ...