Latest news – Page 675
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News
APIL ‘defeatist’
The rights of innocent victims have had shockingly little bearing on the shape of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which has been driven by a mythical compensation culture as part of a surreptitious government cost-cutting agenda. Sadly, those same victims appear to have been given equally ...
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Quality control
It is unfortunate that the Law Society limits its criticism of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates to the idea that judges should evaluate advocates. Instead it should have addressed Lord Justice Moses’ suggestion in his Ebsworth lecture that it is impossible to evaluate the qualities necessary to make a ...
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Patent court fears
Your report ‘Euro patent court "ruinous for business"' will have left readers who are not specialists in patent law uncertain as to whether the main issue is the principle of the court, its location, procedural rules, languages used, or the training of judges. Most pertinent is the quote from Philip ...
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Covert trip reveals rule of law ‘lost’ in Fiji
A secret fact-finding mission to Fiji has concluded that the rule of law ‘no longer operates’ in the country. The independence of the judiciary ‘cannot be relied upon’ and ‘there is no freedom of expression’, council member and Law Society Charity chair Nigel Dodds reports in Fiji: The Rule of ...
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Freshfields’ £10k bursary for underprivileged students
A magic circle firm is to offer students from less privileged backgrounds an annual bursary of £10,000 to finance their law degree studies. The scheme, which follows coalition social mobility adviser Alan Milburn’s calls for higher education to take greater account of candidates’ social backgrounds, will ...
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Serve and protect
The article ‘Mixed-up wills have no value in law’ surprised me a great deal. I disagree that there is any need for a change in the legislation. The provisions of section 9 of the Wills Act are specific and rigid, for the very reason that they are intended to ...
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Writing on the wall
My postbox is bombarded every day with offers of seminars from a multitude of providers. Now on offer is a ‘Crash Course on Punctuation & Grammar’. Have standards of entry to our profession dropped to such an all-time low that our solicitors require after-admission training on the use of commas ...
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Renewal rage
I write to advise of my disgust at the way the SRA is handling requests for practice certificate renewals. I received a PC renewal notice. I have written several times by email, fax and DX to the SRA, but with no response. I have tried ringing, but of course the ...
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Ruling takes foreign lawyers further on passage to India
India’s much-vaunted ‘road map’ for the liberalisation of its £2.6bn legal services market has inched closer to reality following a high court ruling in a case concerning magic circle and international firms. In a ruling yesterday, the Chennai high court gave foreign firms the right to ...
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HSBC accused of blocking panel appeal
The Law Society has accused HSBC and its conveyancing panel manager Countrywide of 'unreasonable' behaviour over membership of the bank's conveyancing panel. According to a statement, the Society had been told by the bank and Countrywide that an appeal process was in place for firms who ...
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Ombudsman confirms move into claims management
Plans for the Legal Ombudsman to handle complaints about claims management companies will benefit consumers and the legal profession, according to the chief ombudsman. Proposals to bring complaints about claims management into the scheme’s remit were confirmed at this week’s meeting of the Office for Legal ...
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DLA’s fixed-price venture chases commercial market
A fixed-price legal services provider today became the first new entrant of the alternative business structure era to enter the commercial market. Riverview Law, backed with funding from global firm DLA Piper, aims to attract every type of client from small and medium-sized businesses to large corporations.
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Litigation changes ‘border on recklessness’, says APIL chief
Rapid change in civil litigation threatens to ‘besiege’ claimant solicitors and their clients, according to the outgoing president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL). David Bott, speaking at the APIL president’s lunch last week, accused the government of ‘recklessness’ in pushing ahead too quickly ...
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ABS aspirant Express announces £3m expansion
Manchester-based personal injury firm Express Solicitors has announced £3m expansion plans and the creation of 40 new jobs in a bid to become an alternative business structure with a £10m turnover within four years. Over the next year, the 12-year-old firm plans to move to a ...
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CFA does not justify departure on interest rate, Neuberger rules
Interest on costs should run from the date of an order rather than the point where costs are agreed, the master of the rolls, Lord Neuberger, has ruled. In a landmark judgment in Simcoe v Jacuzzi Group UK, Neuberger yesterday held that interest on the costs runs from the date ...
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Telecoms giant seeks to become an ABS
Telecoms giant BT is planning a major incursion into the legal services market after applying to become an alternative business structure, the Gazette can reveal. BT Claims, a wholly owned subsidiary, applied last week to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for a licence to become an ABS. ...
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Tuckers offers services to rival firms
Criminal law firm Tuckers is to make its billing, diary management and other back-office operations available to rival firms in an innovative partnering initiative that it hopes will cut operating costs and save lawyers’ jobs.
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Personal injury lawyers meet on Jackson compromise
The executive committee of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers meets today amid member discontent over its proposals for a compromise deal on the Jackson reforms. Last week APIL set out a ‘Plan B’ to offer the government, as the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of ...
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Junior staff forced upon 'life and death' care cases
The soaring number of court applications to take children into care is forcing cash-strapped law firms to use junior and unqualified staff to handle ‘life and death’ cases.