Latest news – Page 806
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News
RTA claims portal ‘loophole’
The chairman of the steering group overseeing the launch of the road traffic accident (RTA) claims portal has played down concerns from claimant lawyers that insurers are using a loophole to delay paying claims.
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Call to give Economic Crime Agency US-style powers
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is pressuring ministers to ensure that tougher US-style powers are available to the new Economic Crime Agency (ECA) once it is formed, the Gazette has learned. The Gazette understands that the SFO, which would be wholly subsumed by and form the ...
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Top firms gear up for private investors
Two of the UK’s top-30 law firms are putting formal arrangements in place to take on private capital next year, the Gazette has learned. Jane Galvin, head of professional services at Barclays Corporate, said in an interview with the Gazette this week that two ‘brave souls’ ...
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LSC chief: family tender outcome 'unintentional'
The Legal Services Commission did not intend the outcome of the recent family tender which saw a 46% fall in the number of providers, its chief executive told the Gazette this week in her first press interview since her appointment. Carolyn Downs (pictured), a career civil ...
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Legal bidding website launched
A new website that provides a forum where law firms can bid for legal work launched last week. The site, bid4fees.com, provides an online platform for prospective clients to confidentially list their legal problems and find a lawyer to advise them. ...
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Chartis delivers professional indemnity insurance blow
The UK’s largest professional indemnity insurer does not have an ‘appetite’ to take on new law firms with fewer than 10 partners, it told the Gazette this week. Chartis, previously AIG, which had a 15% share of the solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance (PII) market last year, ...
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Pleural plaques compensation scheme opens
Pleural plaques victims frustrated by a 2007 House of Lords decision on compensation can now claim £5,000 from the government if they lodged a claim before the ruling. The Pleural Plaques Former Claimants Payment Scheme opened yesterday for applications, which must be lodged before 1 August ...
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APIL urges government to tighten grip on claims management companies
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has called on Lord Young to recommend tighter regulation of claims management companies (CMCs) as part of his review of health and safety laws. Senior figures from APIL held a face-to-face meeting with Lord Young of Graffham to offer advice ...
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Solicitors ‘delaying’ conveyances due to staff shortages
Staff shortages at conveyancing firms are slowing down property transactions, according to a prominent estate agent and former anti-home information pack campaigner. Nick Salmon, commercial director of independent estate agents Harrison Murray who founded anti-HIP group Splinta, told the Gazette that ‘understaffed’ firms are struggling ...
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Solicitors welcome ruling on asylum deportations
The Law Society has welcomed the High Court’s ruling that the fast-track deportation of foreign nationals, which did not allow enough time for them to seek legal advice, is unlawful. In January 2010, the Home Office widened its policy of waiving the usual 72-hour notice ...
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Employment and age-old problem
I was very upset to read the letter, titled 'Too old for the legal profession', in which a 59-year-old solicitor said he had been told that he is on the ‘scrapheap’ and unemployable. What on earth are firms thinking? What a fantastic opportunity to employ someone who is likely to ...
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Conveyancing panel concerns
Lloyds Banking Group has announced that it is to remove from its conveyancing panel those firms that carry out a low volume of mortgage work over a rolling 12-month period. Does that mean that Lloyds no longer wishes to look after our low-volume client and office ...
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End of the line for police station advice?
Cuts in the provision of legal aid are perhaps an inevitable if uncomfortable consequence of the economic mess that we find ourselves in. However, we now learn that justice secretary Ken Clarke’s new-found enthusiasm for keeping offenders out of the prison system is matched by contemplation of a plan to ...
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Confusion over slots for Criminal Defence Service duty rota
I have reached the end of my tether, with the help of the Legal Services Commission Criminal Defence Service. I realised that the end was in sight when I visited its website on 12 July. The duty rota for our scheme had been published on ...
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Outcry over erosion of rule of law in Maldives
A former Maldives attorney general has called on the Law Society to lead a mission to the country to assess the erosion of the rule of law, as judges are assaulted, courts suspended, and citizens’ rights ‘crushed under foot’, he claimed. Dr Hassan Saeed told the ...
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Mental health lawyers concerned over tender contracts
Mental health lawyers have expressed concern at the impact of the Legal Services Commission’s recent tender process as national firm Duncan Lewis seeks to recruit 28 mental health lawyers under a new consultancy model to fulfil its contracts. Duncan Lewis, an established legal aid provider in ...
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Halliwells administrator’s cash management warning
Professional firms must pay ‘far greater attention to cash management’ following the break-up of north-west firm Halliwells, the firm’s administrator warned last week. A deal to sell Halliwells’ Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield operations to three former rivals was completed last week, and Halliwells has now been ...
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New PII market entrant
A new insurer has entered the solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance (PII) market focusing on firms of up to five partners, the Law Society disclosed last week.
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Coal miners pursue law firms over ‘undersettled’ compensation
The first known court actions against law firms for alleged undersettlement of sick coal miners’ government compensation claims will begin preliminary hearings in mid-August, the Gazette has learned. A number of defendant firms have already settled out of court. Oldham County Court is due to hold ...
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Family law supplier base ‘decimated’ by LSC tender
The family law supplier base has been ‘decimated’ by the ‘shock’ outcome of the Legal Services Commission’s tender for civil legal aid work, lawyers groups alleged this week. The Law Society and Legal Aid Practitioners Group said member feedback indicated that around half of firms that ...