Latest news – Page 658
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News
Cheque mystery
On 12 September I sent an application to set aside a default judgment to Northampton. I was urged to send a cheque payable to an organisation by the name of ‘HM Courts and Tribunal Service’. My cheque was cashed on 3 October, since when I have heard nothing. I have ...
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Client care is top priority
As a (thankfully now semi-retired) solicitor of another generation, I was completely taken aback by the publication of James Caan’s comments. The headline - in the magazine - is: ‘Dragons’ Den star: It’s about the money.’ Is it?
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‘Injustice’ is a dirty word
James Caan played an unsophisticated and ruthless mercenary (Santino Corleone) in The Godfather. His namesake is now given space on your front page to argue a similar philosophy.
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Putting money before ethics
Granted there is much to criticise in the investment/business model of partnership but those are commercial problems that can be fixed privately. If they cannot, you walk, simple as that. Reading, however, that James Caan now owns a law firm, I ruefully thought back to a ...
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Bar chief rebuffed over LSB closure
Calls from the bar for the disbanding of the Legal Services Board met with a cool reception from the government this week. Bar Council chair Michael Todd QC told the bar’s annual conference that the super-regulator was going ‘beyond its brief’ and creating ‘burdensome costs’. ...
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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 ...