Latest news – Page 837
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EU threat to client money protection
Plans to enhance the security of client money held in solicitors’ bank accounts could be scuppered by an EU proposal to cap payouts following bank failures. The UK’s Financial Services Authority last week suggested increasing to £500,000 the upper limit of compensation for ‘temporary high balances’, ...
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LSC survey finds legal aid firms lacking in financial skills
Legal aid firms lack the financial expertise needed to meet the challenges presented by reforms such as best-value tendering, according to research published this week. A study of financial management skills carried out for the Legal Services Commission by management consultant Andrew Otterburn shows that fewer ...
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New cooling off rule could invalidate many personal injury CFAs
The government is to meet personal injury solicitors over concerns that new doorstep-selling regulations could invalidate many conditional fee agreements (CFAs) signed over the past six months. The new regime, the Cancellation of Contracts made in a Consumer’s Home or Place of Work etc Regulations 2008, ...
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Appeal court warns against attempts to vary divorce settlements
The Court of Appeal has warned lawyers not to apply to vary the financial settlements of divorcees whose fortunes have been hit by the recession. In a strongly worded dismissal of an attempt by financier Brian Myerson to overturn a divorce agreement, three judges last week ...
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New rights for people trafficking victims in force in UK
Immigration lawyers have a new weapon in their armoury following the implementation of a European agreement to stamp out people trafficking.
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Firms face ‘legal exposure’ over cancelled contracts
Law firms risk ‘reputational damage and legal exposure’ as increasing numbers of firms seek to defer or cancel training contracts due to the recession, a leading employment lawyer has warned. City firms Denton Wilde Sapte and LG are the latest to ask their prospective September 2009 ...
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BSB obstructing Legal Services Act reforms, says solicitor
The Bar Standards Board is ‘single-handedly frustrating government policy’ by its tardiness in changing rules to permit barristers to join legal disciplinary practices (LDPs), according to a solicitor trying to set up a new-style partnership.
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Attorney general promotes diversity in the profession
The diversity agenda must be pushed forward but positive discrimination in the legal profession is not the answer, according to the attorney general, Lady Scotland. In an interview with the Gazette, Scotland said there is ‘clearly lots to do’. The profession must ‘consolidate the work we ...
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Firm appoints first legal executive partner
Legal executive advocate Nick Hanning became the first legal executive to be made partner in a law firm under the Legal Services Act’s new business structure changes, according to the Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX). Hanning, a personal injury lawyer at Poole firm RWPS, took his ...
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FSA hires investigators to take on ‘boiler room’ scams
The Financial Services Authority is to boost its ability to combat ‘boiler room’ scams by recruiting 20 additional investigators to its enforcement division, the Gazette has learned. The extra staff will supplement the planned recruitment of 40 investigators by the FSA’s director of enforcement, Margaret ...
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Law Commission proposes new tests for expert witness evidence
Expert witness evidence may have to undergo formal reliability tests to determine whether it can be admitted in criminal trials under proposals from the Law Commission. A consultation published this week calls for guidelines to help judges determine whether or not evidence is ‘sufficiently trustworthy’ for a jury to consider. ...
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LSB publishes business plan and cost recovery proposals
The Legal Services Board today published its business plan for 2009/10 and named its senior management team. The plan gives priority to work on regulatory independence, alternative business structures, providing effective redress and the development of a model of regulatory excellence in legal services. ...
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Copyright Tribunal overhaul will fast-track small claims
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) today proposed to streamline large-scale Copyright Tribunal cases and allow smaller claims to be fast-tracked, as it launched a review of the tribunal’s rules. The IPO said the changes will make the tribunal quicker and cheaper to use, particularly for individuals ...
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Social immobility the norm in legal profession
The legal world emerges badly from the findings of government research into social mobility published today. According to the Phase 1 report of the Cabinet Office’s Fair Access Panel, solicitors and barristers were far more likely than the population at large to have been privately schooled. ...
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Tax prosecutors to merge with CPS
The Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO) is to merge with the Crown Prosecution Service four years after it was set up, in a move to save public money and improve efficiency. The Attorney General, Lady Scotland QC (pictured), announced the change following a review of ...
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Adopting the terminology of big business demeans our profession
While other professions and enterprises are adopting terminology designed to elevate those who use their services, why is it that we are docilely using terms which demean our clients, our profession and the services we provide?
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Outrageous Abbey
I write in connection with your story last week, ‘Abbey strikes thousands from conveyancing panel’ (see [2009] Gazette, 26 March, 1). Abbey’s action is outrageous.
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Age old problem
The debate concerning age discrimination is set to continue. Might I suggest that newly qualified solicitors who are of mature years stop whingeing and show prospective employers how they can increase profit margins.
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Only 14 firms become first-wave LDPs
The legal profession has largely snubbed the first wave of the Legal Services Act’s business structure reforms, with only 14 legal disciplinary practices up and running as the new regime came into force on Tuesday. The takeup remained low despite a one-month extension to the original ...
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Big four mortgage lenders reassure conveyancing panel firms
Four of the UK’s biggest mortgage lenders have reassured solicitors that they have no plans to cut firms from residential conveyancing panels. Last week, Abbey cut the number of law firm offices on its panel from 12,000 to 6,050, provoking dismay from those affected. Halifax, Nationwide, ...