Latest news – Page 601
-
News
Insurers turn guns on compensation payments
The insurance industry’s campaign for cutting the cost of personal injury claims will not end with the banning of referral fees and the reduction of lawyers’ fixed fees in RTA Portal cases, a leading figure in the insurance industry has indicated. James Dalton, head of ...
-
News
LSC to reconsider ‘hacked’ legal aid contract tender
A Birmingham solicitor who lost out on a family legal aid contract after her online application was hacked has won a legal challenge to the Legal Services Commission’s refusal to reconsider her application. The High Court heard that Rifat Mushtaq, owner of Mushtaq & Co, had ...
-
News
Supreme Court holds secret hearing in Mellat case
The Supreme Court has submitted to what its president Lord Neuberger called the ‘unhappy procedure’ of becoming a secret court to consider some of an Iranian bank’s appeal concerning the validity of a 2009 order made against it by HM Treasury. The Treasury claimed that privately ...
-
News
Call to end ‘mock trials’ in public inquiries
The ‘litigation model’ of public inquiries should be reformed to embrace alternative methods of dialogue and decision-making, according to a report published by the chief executive of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR). The report’s author, CEDR chief executive Karl Mackie, said that public inquiries ...
-
News
Separate representation vote condemned
The Council of Mortgage Lenders today accused Scottish solicitors of protectionism after they voted for separate representation for buyers and lenders in all conveyancing transactions. CML director general Paul Smee said: ‘It is disappointing that a measure which is so blatantly against consumer interests and ...
-
News
Cold-calling prosecutions planned
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is ready to prosecute up to a dozen more companies who carry out cold-calling and send spam text messages. This week the ICO fined a second company for unlawful marketing techniques to attract personal injury and payment protection insurance claimants. ...
-
News
Legal help must be restored to all private law children disputes
The result of enormous effort and faith, The Children Act 1991 enshrined the rights of children in family law as paramount. Yet the regulations that will come into effect on 8 April will seriously undermine all the good work and progress made to date. For the ...
-
News
Stolen identity
We have encountered a problem where this firm’s identity is being used by a potential fraudster. On one day in January, we were contacted by seven people/firms in Canada who received a letter from a potential fraudster, holding himself out as being an attorney at this firm, using this firm’s ...
-
News
Swings and roundabouts
Here we go again. In classic Daily Mail-style, out come the stories – which we are expected to treat as typical – of solicitors charging £4,000 for photocopying or overcharging by £30,000. Just like the single mother with 13 children.
-
News
Fairness plea
Am I the only solicitor worried about the future of criminal litigation in this country? I see fewer young solicitors becoming involved in criminal work. The reasons why would seem to be simple. The remuneration and conditions of practice cannot attract new people.
-
News
Foreign territory
Martin Maloney responds to my response to his original letter about assumptions of guilt within criminal law procedure. In essence, Mr Maloney repeats his previous assertions which I have already answered; basically that what distinguishes us from others is that we are lawyers and that this is a legal journal. ...
-
News
Ten-point plan for solicitors to cut claims delays
Solicitors can cut delays in processing claims at the County Court Money Claims Centre by not stapling forms together, the centre has suggested. The advice appears in a list of ways in which ‘customers’ can help the much-criticised Salford centre, which marks its first birthday ...
-
News
Half of all tribunal fines remain unpaid
Nearly half of the solicitors fined by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in recent years have avoided paying those fines in full, figures obtained by the Gazette reveal. Of 579 cases since 2008 in which such a penalty was imposed, the fine has yet to be ...
-
News
Lloyds counsels calm on credit
High street firms should not fear a ‘kneejerk’ reaction from banks restricting lending in the wake of high-profile firm failures, according to a big-four bank. The collapse of Manchester firm Cobbetts in January, which followed the demise in 2010 of regional giant Halliwells, has led ...
-
News
Nine out of 10 oppose criminal tendering plan
Nearly 90% of solicitors are opposed to price-competitive tendering (PCT) for criminal defence work, a Law Society survey has revealed, after the government announced accelerated plans for its introduction. The online poll of 200 solicitors showed overwhelming opposition to tendering – 89% strongly disagreed or disagreed ...
-
News
Drug and Alcohol Court pioneers drink monitors
The judge leading London’s pioneering Family Drug and Alcohol Court has voiced concern that lack of money will stop families in care cases getting adequate support to turn their lives around. Judge Nicholas Crichton (pictured) spoke to the Gazette following the end of a three-month pilot ...
-
News
No ‘stay of execution’ from banks for PI firms
Personal injury firms will struggle to convince banks that they are viable when fees are slashed next month, an insolvency expert has warned. Practices across the country have begun making redundancies ahead of fixed recoverable costs being cut by 60% at the end of April, the ...
-
News
Mid Staffs negligence ‘explosion’ predicted
NHS hospitals must brace themselves for an ‘explosion’ in medical negligence claims in the aftermath of the report into the Mid Staffordshire scandal, a leading lawyer in the sector has said. Tim Gorman, partner at clinical negligence firm Axiclaim, said last month’s publication of the Francis ...
-
News
Call to suspend Sri Lanka from Commonwealth
A report for the Bar Human Rights Committee has called for Sri Lanka to be suspended from the Commonwealth over the impeachment of the country’s chief justice. Barrister and report author Geoffrey Robertson QC said Dr Shirani Bandaranayake (pictured), Sri Lanka’s first woman judge and chief ...
-
News
Businesses cite human rights act in disputes
Businesses are increasingly using human rights arguments in commercial disputes, with the number of such cases increasing from 10 to 45 in four years, new research has revealed. A study by legal information provider Sweet & Maxwell reports cases in 2012 that included a radio station ...