Latest news – Page 672
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Clarke defends secret trials
Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke has defended plans to extend secret trials across a range of proceedings in the civil courts, arguing that a ‘unique and unprecedented’ terrorist threat means that evidence affecting national security can be safely disclosed only behind closed doors. A measure in the ...
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ALS offers cash to beat interpreting boycott
The company running the controversial new courtroom interpreting service is offering cash incentives to interpreters who recruit friends, the Gazette has learned, as it emerged than nine out of 10 court interpreters are boycotting the service.
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Society slams tribunal fee plans
The Law Society has condemned as creating a barrier to justice government plans to introduce fees for taking claims to employment tribunals and employment appeals tribunals. The government is consulting on charging fees in order to transfer costs of running the employment tribunal system to ...
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Quality test 'should not protect barristers'
Controversy about the use of judicial evaluation in a new scheme to assess the quality of advocates has escalated, with solicitors’ bodies warning that the scheme could become a means to protect barristers.
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Court upholds wasted costs order
The Court of Appeal has upheld a wasted costs order against a Buckinghamshire firm, ruling that it was ‘complicit’ in its client’s ‘manipulation’ of the court process by failing to give reasons for opposing a hearsay notice in a criminal trial.
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Labour peers seek to halve portal fees
Labour peers have tabled proposals in the Lords to halve the fixed fees solicitors can claim from the low-value RTA Portal. Lord Beecham and Lord Bach (pictured) put down amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill for debate on Monday. The changes ...
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‘Vigorously’ defend cases after reforms, Djanogly tells insurers
Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly has told insurers he expects them to ‘vigorously defend’ cases after civil litigation reforms are enacted. Djanogly told an insurance industry conference last week that civil justice reforms will provide a more level playing field between claimants and defendants. ...
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Liverpool Victoria wins bogus accident case
A leading insurer has secured the first known successful prosecution of a claimant who completely fabricated a car accident. Liverpool Victoria, which uses the trademark LV=, brought contempt proceedings against individuals who had reported a crash in Birmingham in 2008 and failed to attend court ...
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Fiji hits back at scathing report
Fiji’s attorney general has launched a personal attack on the author of a report which claimed to expose a serious deterioration in the rule of law in the country. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum (pictured), the second most powerful member of Fiji’s government, described the report as a ‘joke’ ...
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Flexible working 'crucial for women lawyers'
Almost all women lawyers believe that flexible working practices are key to women winning senior roles in law firms, an international survey suggests. Some 85% of respondents to the survey, commissioned by LexisNexis and the Law Society, said that the level of commitment required to reach ...
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LASPO suffers three more defeats in Lords
The government lost three more votes on its planned legal aid reforms in the House of Lords yesterday, but narrowly staved off an amendment that would have kept public funding for all clinical negligence cases. In the second day of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment ...
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Educate, don’t mandate: Jackson on mediation
Lord Justice Jackson has called for a ‘serious campaign’ to teach lawyers and judges the benefits of mediation to settle disputes. The architect of the civil litigation reforms told a conference today that he is still a keen advocate of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as a ...
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Fee structure frozen to 2013
Regulators today confirmed they will not change next year’s fee structure for solicitors. However the actual level of fees will not be set until later this year. The existing settings for practising fees were set at a board meeting of the Solicitors Regulation Authority last ...
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Reprieve for specialist support service
The Specialist Support Provider Service (SSPS) has received a stay of execution after the Legal Services Commission agreed to extend current contracts for three months while it consults on ending the scheme.
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Treat clients as customers or you’re doomed, says Ombudsman
Law firms will not survive if they continue to resist consumer demands for fairer pricing, the Legal Ombudsman has warned. A report published today states that up to a quarter of the 90,000 annual complaints relate to costs, where a client has felt overcharged, confused or been surprised at the ...
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LSB ponders making immigration advice a reserved activity
Regulators have ‘inadequate understanding’ of the immigration advice market and don’t know if lawyers provide a good service, according to a review by the Legal Services Board (LSB). A discussion paper published by the LSB reveals that the authority is looking at whether immigration advice and ...
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Clarke: ‘We’re taking legal aid away from lawyers’
The government’s legal aid cuts are aimed at lawyers, the justice secretary Kenneth Clarke said today, as he rejected the Law Society’s claims that they will harm access to justice for the disadvantaged. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Clarke said: ‘We’re not taking legal aid ...
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Opponents score hat-trick on legal aid votes
The government lost all three votes in the Lords last night over proposed amendments to its legal aid bill, making concessions on the evidence needed to prove domestic violence and on powers to bring cases back into the scope of legal aid. In a series of ...
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Survey shows hundreds of code of conduct breaches
Regulators have discovered hundreds of potential breaches of the new code of conduct during visits to law firms. The Solicitors Regulation Authority says it found a lack of understanding of the code during its survey of 200 firms carried out before the new code’s release in ...
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Committal fee cut ‘leaves defendants unrepresented’
Defendants are being left unrepresented in magistrates’ courts following the government’s scrapping of lawyers’ fees for committal proceedings in either-way offences, the Law Society told the High Court this week. Lord Justice Burnton and Mr Justice Treacy heard the Society’s legal challenge to the lawfulness of ...