Latest news – Page 620
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News
Insurers annex civil justice
To survive and thrive, a legal system must be respected by all sides. However, this principle is surely now under challenge by the fixed payment system being introduced for personal injury work. So misconceived is the principle of fixed costs, and so low are ...
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Unearthing history
I thought your readers may be interested, or indeed be able to provide some additional information, regarding an unusual charge I recently came across in a title for a property built in the 1970s on Denge Marsh, Kent.
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Society condemns new rules on IFAs
The Law Society has taken the unprecedented step of urging solicitors to ‘disregard’ their regulatory handbook, as a row brews over liberalisation of referrals for financial advice. The Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed this week that it will change the rules to allow solicitors to refer clients ...
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Fears over civil justice system ‘meltdown’
A six-month hiatus on sweeping personal injury reforms is necessary to avert a ‘meltdown’ of the civil justice system, Chancery Lane has said. The Law Society fears that an entirely new funding system, proposed last week by the Ministry of Justice, will be too much for ...
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Complaints research
Further to your article ‘Call for ABS complaints data after fund rebuff’ in last week’s edition, I wanted to clarify the Law Society’s position on this issue, which was misrepresented in the article, and highlight further developments on this topic.
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UKBA warns lawyers over ‘queue-jumping’
Immigration lawyers who help clients queue-jump an appointments system for work permits risk sanctions that could end their practice, the UK Border Agency has warned. In what is known as ‘a 3am appointment’, immigration advisers, including solicitors, use fictitious client names to book appointments online ...
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Lawyers fight town hall cuts
A group of City pro bono lawyers is taking aim at local authority cuts affecting vulnerable elderly and disabled residents. The lawyers will scrutinise care fee contracts that councils seek to vary, and bring judicial reviews of cuts estimated to add up to £1bn. ...
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Speeding up cases ‘risks miscarriages of justice’
Government plans to speed up criminal cases risk ‘significantly’ increasing the number of miscarriages of justice, the Law Society warned this week. Responding to a white paper setting out planned reforms of the criminal justice system, the Society stressed that dealing with cases swiftly must be ...
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Grayling: No U-turn on pensions
The lord chancellor has refused calls to reconsider cuts to judicial pensions. Chris Grayling told the Lords constitution committee last week that exempting judges from austerity would ‘make them the target of public hostility’. Grayling also rebuffed peers’ calls for a statutory duty on the lord chief justice to create ...
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News Focus: RTA fees
Government plans to wipe £700 from each fixed fee paid in low-value personal injury cases will put firms out of business, increase the risk of negligence and harm victims of accidents, solicitors have warned.
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Professional priorities
James Caan, described as a private equity investor, is reported in your issue of 1 November as complaining that the solicitors’ profession is ‘reluctant to prioritise making money’. If this is true, then the situation is much better than I had feared. Surely a reluctance to ...
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Novel idea
It sounds as though Peter Elliott (‘Litigants in person "need more support"’) is asking for some sort of state-funded legal assistance, in order to ensure that everyone has access to justice. What a novel idea. I am not sure it will ever catch on with the powers that be. ...
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Implement Jackson reforms for media litigation, says Leveson
A call for Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals on costs to be introduced for defamation, privacy, breach of confidence ‘and similar media-related litigation’ appears in the Leveson report on the press published today. In his report, Lord Justice Leveson proposes a new law to create an independent ...
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CJC member rules out mandatory litigation funding code
There are no plans to change the voluntary code for third-party litigation funding, according to one of its creators. Professor Rachael Mulheron, a member of the Civil Justice Council, said the code was still appropriate one year on from its adoption. Speaking ...
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SRA falls short of 45-second target
The Solicitors Regulation Authority failed to answer 25% of calls to its professional ethics helpline within 45 seconds in the third quarter of 2012, the organisation revealed this week, a year after the service began. Board papers said that 13,480 calls were answered out of ...
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SRA reviews cases for race disparity
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published details of an investigation into whether black and minority ethnic (BME) solicitors are being treated fairly by the regulator. Terms of reference have been agreed for a comparative case review, which the organisation said is ‘designed to further ...
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Text spamming fine puts claims farmers on notice
The Information Commissioner’s Office today fined two owners of a marketing company £440,000 after they plagued the public with millions of spam texts. The ICO used its power to issue a monetary penalty for the first time after the pair were found to have breached the ...
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Telephone advice contract goes to Co-op
Co-operative Legal Services is among the 12 firms to have been awarded new telephone advice contracts by the Legal Services Commission, it was announced today. The Co-op, together with national firm Duncan Lewis and Cardiff-based Access Legal Training, were awarded the three contracts for family advice. ...
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Claimant lawyers ‘killed the golden goose’ - ABI
A top insurance industry lobbyist has claimed that claimant lawyers will have only themselves to blame for reduced profits having ‘killed the goose that laid the golden egg’. James Dalton, head of motor and liability at the Association of British Insurers, accused the claimant community of ...
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Former attorney general says Grayling ‘failed’ test
The lord chancellor has failed in his duty to uphold the law - by proclaiming parliamentary sovereignty over the issue of prisoner voting, according to a Labour former attorney general. In a strong attack on Chris Grayling, Lord Goldsmith calls attention to the lord chancellor’s ...