Latest news – Page 870
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Tribunals in Wales face major shake-up
Tribunals in Wales face substantial reform after their supervisory body found them lacking in independence, openness, impartiality and efficiency.
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Practitioners divided over implications of trial without jury
Criminal practitioners are divided over the implications of the Court of Appeal’s decision to allow a judge alone to hear the retrial of a robbery case. Last week the lord chief justice ruled that the risk of jury tampering was sufficient to allow the trial of ...
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Top legal aid firm avoids closure by HMRC
Top London legal aid firm Duncan Lewis has avoided being shut down by HM Revenue & Customs after falling behind in tax payments because of delayed settlements from the Legal Services Commission. A petition to wind up Duncan Lewis, last year the highest earning civil legal ...
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Criminal solicitors raise fund for court challenge to BVT
Criminal solicitors have pledged contributions for a fighting fund to challenge the government’s introduction of best value tendering (BVT) for legal aid work, the Gazette has learned. A consultation on the scheme ended last week, after attracting more than 1,000 responses expected to be overwhelmingly critical.
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CPS launches national advocacy assessment
A national system of advocacy assessment will be introduced across the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure quality, the director of public prosecutions announced today. Keir Starmer QC (pictured) said the new advocacy quality management strategy will monitor performance and target training. It will be implemented ...
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Crime figures show drop in fraud and criminal damage
The number of people sentenced for fraud and criminal damage fell during the last quarter of 2008, while fewer juveniles and young adults were sent to prison, statistics released today reveal. Provisional Ministry of Justice data show that from October to December last year, 75,300 people ...
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Open the cage
Last week’s front page: ‘Solicitors face road traffic fees cut’, ‘Final nail in the coffin of legal aid firms’, ‘Compensation fund levy could hit £875 in 2010’ (see [2009] Gazette, 11 June, 1). Open the cage and let me in! ...
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Monopoly supplier
I note that Land Registry fees are to rise from early July by about 30%. Presumably, this is to remedy the lack of income caused by the diminution in the volume of conveyancing work.
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Packing a punch
We write with reference to a report by Catherine Baksi about cost-price HIPs (see [2009] Gazette, 11 June, 2). We at Donaldson West have been dealing with HIPs in this way since their inception.
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Pinochet pointer
My letter (see [2009] Gazette, 21 May, 9) was an attempt to present a less critical view of the role of Lord Hoffmann in the Pinochet case than that offered by Joshua Rozenberg in his article celebrating Lord Hoffmann’s retirement.
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Best use of taxpayers’ money
In the piece, ‘Criminal legal aid is under threat like never before’ (see [2009] Gazette, 4 June, 17-20), Paul Marsh expressed concerns about best value tendering (BVT), which are important to address.
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European corporate counsel told that the recession provides a ‘golden opportunity’
With impeccable timing, the European chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) convened in Switzerland for its annual conference on 8 June. A few weeks earlier, the Swiss government had released draft legislation that could give corporate in-house counsel in Switzerland a right to professional privilege that does not ...
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Tories will halt roll out of best value tendering, says Grieve
A Conservative government would suspend the national rollout of best value tendering (BVT) to enable a proper evaluation of the controversial new scheme, the shadow justice secretary announced last week. Dominic Grieve QC said that pilots due to begin in Greater Manchester and Avon and ...
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Solicitors alarmed at links between Bereavement Advice Centre and probate firm
Financial links between a not-for-profit advice organisation and a probate services company have come under fire from solicitors. The Bereavement Advice Centre publishes a website with the subtitle ‘What to do when someone dies’. Solicitors say that the organisation’s leaflets publicising a helpline promoting BAC’s commercial ...
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Client-matching website takes aim at claims handling firms
A solicitor has launched a website to bring together prospective clients and solicitors who will take on their cases in an attempt to drive claims handlers out of the process. The Law Bazaar, set up by Costas Andrea (pictured), who practised as an international litigator for ...
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Kent local authority legal teams join forces
Three mid-Kent local authorities are to join forces in a shared legal services project that aims to save more than £250,000 a year. Under the new model, legal staff at Swale, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells borough councils will remain based at their authorities but support ...
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Birmingham courts pilot Jackson review’s cost management model
Judges in two of Birmingham’s business courts have begun trialling Lord Justice Jackson’s concept of ‘costs management’. The pilot in the Mercantile and Technology and Construction Courts aims to test whether judges can actively control costs throughout a case. In his ...
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Law Society plans new branding campaign
The Law Society is building upon last year’s £450,000 advertising and public relations programme with a new campaign to promote the brand of solicitor to the public. Last year’s campaign, which ran from early May to late June 2008, carried the strapline ‘Your solicitor, qualified ...
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Pro bono lawyers celebrate awards
City firm Taylor Wessing won the award for best contribution by a law firm at LawWorks’ annual pro bono awards. The firm was recognised for its ‘commitment and enthusiasm to investing in the community’, particularly through its work organising and staffing a weekly legal advice ...
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Online database identifies serial employment tribunal litigants
Serial litigants whose employment tribunal claims are costing employers and taxpayers millions of pounds in defence costs and court time are to be targeted through a new database. Solicitor Gordon Turner of Partners Employment Lawyers and barrister Damian McCarthy of Cloisters chambers have set up ...