Latest news – Page 797
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HIP hijack
I share shadow housing minister Grant Shapps’s desire to abolish the home information pack. However, we must encourage the seller to instruct solicitors early in the selling process, which is still not happening despite the good intentions behind the HIP. Ideally the solicitor needs to get on with the ‘completion-ready’ ...
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IT failure at LSC delays legal aid payments
Technical problems at the Legal Services Commission have delayed all payments due to be made to legal aid solicitors today. The LSC is set to issue an e-alert later updating the profession on the situation. Payment systems at the LSC apparently ...
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Reform group publishes plans to change HIP rules
A group of property professionals released a ‘white paper’ today putting forward proposals to reform the controversial home information packs in a bid to speed up transactions and reduce abortive sales. The HIP Reform Group, established in November 2009, said the packs should be retained rather ...
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Trainee solicitors face debts of more than £10,000
More than half of trainee solicitors have racked up debts of more than £10,000 before qualifying, according to an annual survey published by law student forum TraineeSolicitor.co.uk. The survey of around 200 trainees revealed that 55% had debts in excess of £10,000, while 35% were more ...
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Swatton Taylor Dutton and Matthew Waite & Co
In our 3 December 2009 edition, we published a letter by Peter Hughes of Hughes & Company, Tring, regarding referral fees. Mr Hughes and the Law Society Gazette are happy to make clear that the solicitors firms Swatton Taylor Dutton and Matthew Waite & Co, of Tring, have never paid ...
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Missing the point
I was saddened to read the letter from Trevor Moore, ‘What is the point?’ (see [2009] Gazette, 3 December, 11). This is not the profession I practise or recognise.
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Fee freedom
Three cheers for recent letters setting out the case for liberation from referral fees. Our firm takes the same position; we also refuse to advertise.
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Notary frustration
I am an English solicitor practising on the Costa Blanca in Spain. I read Gill Mather’s article on the archaic practices of Spanish notaries (see [2009] Gazette, 19 November, 11) immediately after returning from a 200-mile round-trip to a notary’s office to execute a deed on behalf of a client ...
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Wake up and smell the coffee
I am writing in response to recent letters from solicitors who either claim or imply that because their firms don’t pay referral fees they somehow have more integrity than firms that do. Aside from failing to mention that rule 1.02 of the Code of Conduct requires us all to act ...
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Good points well made?
In response to Mr Moore's letter 'What is the point?' I am sorry he sees little point in his job as a solicitor – I love mine and see a great deal of point to it. I am not motivated however, to work in an ivory tower of the 'only ...
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Open and shut case
So Resolution opposes the government’s plans to extend family reporting (see [2009] Gazette, 10 December, 3). The government is quite right to be extending it; the public need to know what is being done in their name.
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Lessons of the recession
That well-known source of reliable information, Wikipedia, helpfully says that there is no generally accepted definition of the word ‘recession’. However, I think it reasonable to accept that it is a sustained period of economic downturn.
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Book sales, climate change funds and hotel developments
Energy boost: Allen & Overy advised a consortium of six banks on creating the Marguerite Fund, an energy, climate change and infrastructure fund for EU member states. The banks contributed €100m (£90m) each, with the fund seeking to raise €1.5bn (£1.35bn) by mid-2011.
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City firms failing to support solicitors who want to become judges
Concern is mounting over City firms’ failure to support solicitors who want to become judges, Law Society chief executive Des Hudson was expected to tell the Law Society Council this week. In his monthly report, Hudson also suggests that a ‘similar message’ might emerge from a ...
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Law Society threatens legal action over OLC jobs
The Law Society has threatened the government and the new solicitor complaints-handling body with legal action following their decision not to automatically reassign staff from the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) to the new Office for Legal Complaints (OLC). The functions of the LCS are to be ...
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European Court of Human Rights in 'crisis'
Europe’s foremost human rights court is in ‘crisis’, with a backlog of more than 120,000 cases waiting up to seven years to be heard, lawyers have warned. Leading human rights barrister Lord Lester QC said last week that the influx of new states since the ...
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Solicitors dismayed over chancellor's legal aid budget cuts
Solicitors reacted with dismay last week to further planned cuts in the £2bn annual legal aid budget outlined in chancellor Alistair Darling’s Pre-Budget Report. The chancellor included plans by 2012/13 to make ‘£360m of savings in the criminal justice system by improving case management, putting underperforming ...
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Law Society to advise students about the risks of a legal career
The Law Society is to step up its campaign to warn students of the risks and challenges faced in pursuing a legal career. Expanding the Society’s information campaign is one of a number of proposals being considered by the education and training committee to address the ...
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Contingency fees regulation will drive lawyers out of the market
Government proposals to regulate contingency fees will drive lawyers out of the market and leave 500,000 people a year without legal representation, employment lawyers have warned. Draft regulations published this month by the Ministry of Justice propose a 25% cap on the proportion of a client’s ...
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Solicitors ‘to profit’ from instructing barristers following BSB rule changes
Solicitors will for the first time be able to profit from instructing barristers following rule changes agreed last month by the Bar Standards Board (BSB), a legal businessman has said. Peter Rouse, director of online barristers’ directory Bar Select, said the new rules on how barristers ...