Latest news – Page 623
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Grayling renews human rights assault after Qatada release
Justice secretary Chris Grayling has used the Abu Qatada deportation debacle to strengthen his call for reform of European human rights laws. The radical Islamic cleric was released on bail this week after a special immigration appeals commission allowed his appeal against deportation to Jordan, ...
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Local government merger plan
Lawyers in Local Government is likely to be the name of a new body combining Solicitors in Local Government, which represents 4,000 local government lawyers in England and Wales, and the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors. The merger move coincides with the Law Society’s ...
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Claims management regulation ‘won't be transferred’
The government will resist calls to transfer claims management regulation to another independent regulator. Justice minister Helen Grant (pictured) told a House of Commons debate last week that fundamental change was wrong at a time when reforms were tackling bad practice by the sector. ...
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Kent firm Cripps brings in property expert
Expertise from the property industry is to guide expansion at Kent firm Cripps Harries Hall, the latest law firm to announce the appointment of a high-profile non-executive consultant. Christopher Digby-Bell (pictured), a director and general counsel at property investment business Palmer Capital, has been appointed ...
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Litigants in person ‘need more support’
A former aviation director who represented himself in court has called for the government and legal profession to do more to help self-represented people. Peter Elliott said he was ‘utterly frightened’ when he first walked into Manchester’s high court four years ago and was reduced to ...
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Society mental health scheme to become mandatory
Membership of the Law Society’s mental health accreditation scheme will be mandatory for legal aid practitioners from 2014, it emerged this week. A provision is to be added to the legal aid contract under which only people with accreditation will be entitled to provide legally ...
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Video in courts ‘not being used’
Time is running out for the practice of leaving video suites in courts, the official in charge of computerising the justice system said last week. Paul Shipley, IT director at HM Courts & Tribunals Service, said the Ministry of Justice is demanding that ‘cashable savings’ ...
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Scots protest over legal aid cuts
Lawyers in Scotland demonstrated outside the Holyrood parliament this week, threatening to strike in protest over changes to the country’s legal aid system. The Civil Justice Council and Criminal Legal Assistance bill, currently before the parliament, proposes that defendants with a disposable income of £68 or ...
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Hooper: call police over ‘corrupt’ referral fees
A former Court of Appeal judge earlier this week called for lawyers who pay or receive ‘corrupt’ referral fees to be reported to the police. Lord Justice Hooper told the bar conference that the growth of referral fees, which ‘corruptly’ influence the choice of trial advocate, is the most pernicious ...
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Judges could make ‘ill-informed’ decisions on costs, says Gloster
New costs management rules coming in next April may lead to ‘ill-informed’ decisions on legal costs by judges, a high-profile judge has warned. Mrs Justice Gloster, who was the trial judge in Boris Berezovsky’s failed claim against Roman Abramovich this summer, said that while she had ...
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Jackson ‘will fuel conflicts’
The Jackson reforms will heighten potential conflicts of interest where barristers are dealing directly with the public, experts at the bar conference warned last week. The reforms will alter the rules underpinning conditional fee agreements and introduce damages-based agreements, which will allow lawyers to take a ...
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QASA designed to ‘destroy’
The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) is designed to split the legal profession in order to destroy it, the chair of the Criminal Bar Association alleged. Michael Turner QC said QASA is not being introduced to protect the public from ‘rogue advocates’, but as a necessary precursor to one ...
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Bar builds student appeal despite drop in pupillages
The number of students applying for the bar professional training course (BPTC) soared by almost 17% last year as the number of pupillages continued to drop. The second annual ‘Bar Barometer’ report published jointly by the Bar Council and the Bar Standards Board shows that ...
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New call for ABSs complaints data
The Law Society has called on regulators to collect specific complaints data on alternative business structures after failing to persuade the government to create a separate compensation fund for ABSs. The lord chancellor is expected to remove the ‘sunset’ clause in the Legal Services Act to ...
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‘Without merit’ immigration appeals rounded on
Immigration solicitors who lodge last-minute groundless applications to prevent removals will be named and shamed and have their senior partners summoned before the court, the president of the Queen’s Bench Division has warned. Sir John Thomas said the administrative court faced an ‘ever-increasing large volume’ of ...
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BT snaps up legal software giant
Telecoms giant BT has announced its second foray into the legal services world with the £64m acquisition of a specialist supplier of law firm software. BT Retail announced this morning that it has agreed to pay £64.2m in cash for Tikit Group, which supplies financial and practice management systems to ...
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Hundreds of DLA jobs in line of fire
International firm DLA Piper has put 251 jobs at risk across the UK after launching a review of its domestic business. The firm said today it is considering the closure of its Glasgow office, the closure or divestment of its defendant insurance practice and the consolidation ...
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Marsh joins SRA’s first lay majority board
A former Law Society president is among four new members appointed to the first board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority to have a lay majority. Paul Marsh was president in 2008/09 and since then has been central to the creation of the Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme ...
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Norton Rose announces transatlantic merger
International firm Norton Rose has announced a merger deal with a US practice that will cement its place in the top 10 global firms. The firm will combine with Fulbright & Jaworski on 1 June, 2013 to form Norton Rose Fulbright. The ...
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FFW merger deal with Osborne Clarke off
Merger talks between top 40 law firms Osborne Clarke and Field Fisher Waterhouse have collapsed over ‘differences in approach’. The firms confirmed in September that talks had started over a joint venture. But in a statement today, the firms said they had ...