Latest news – Page 740
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News
Olympic pro bono service launches
Solicitors and barristers are being asked to provide free legal advice to participants in The London 2012 Olympic Games, as a new pro bono service was unveiled today. The Law Society, the ...
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Two solicitors awarded Queen's Counsel status
Just two solicitors were among the 120 Queen’s Counsel appointments announced by the Lord Chancellor today, while three high-profile solicitors were awarded honorary silk. The successful solicitor applicants were David Price, founder of London media law firm David Price Solicitors & Advocates, and Timothy Taylor, litigation ...
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Judges slam legal aid cuts and lawyers who bring ‘unmeritorious’ claims
Judges have slammed government plans to cut legal aid, but also criticised publicly funded lawyers who bring ‘unmeritorious’ public law claims, and proposed limiting legal aid in judicial review cases. In a response to the government’s consultation on legal aid published last week, the Judges’ Council ...
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Law Society warns against ‘scaremongering’ insurance adverts
The Law Society has warned homeowners not to be taken in by ‘scaremongering’ adverts offering ‘ineffective’ insurance protection against property fraud. The warning follows the publication of title theft protection insurance adverts that Chancery Lane says have been ‘aggressively marketed’ by some insurance companies. ...
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Chancery Lane to launch will writing campaign
The Law Society is launching a campaign to ensure that will writers take formal qualifications before attempting to provide a service to consumers. The campaign, which will warn about the financial and other risks of using unqualified will writers, will include lobbying the Lord Chancellor ...
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Legal recruitment picks up for in-house and banking
The ‘war for talent’ is hotting up in the in-house sector, with companies increasingly entering into a bidding war for candidates, according to recruitment firm Badenoch & Clark. The recruiter’s executive director Lynne Hardman said that recruitment is also picking up in the banking sector and ...
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Hogan Lovells reports profits boost
City firm Hogan Lovells has reported a 10% boost to partner profits in its first set of full-year financial results. The firm, formed by the merger of US firm Hogan & Hartson and City firm Lovells last year, reported average profits per equity partner (PEP) of ...
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File blunders spark Legal Services Commission payment chaos
The Legal Services Commission is experiencing ‘significant delays’ in processing payments to firms after administrative blunders affected thousands of criminal case files, the Gazette has learned. Payment problems have occurred in relation to 4,000 files which were not allocated the necessary reference by HM Courts Service ...
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Consumers back 'name and shame' complaints policy
Consumers are generally in favour of ‘naming and shaming’ law firms that are subject to complaints, but would only expect information to be published when a firm has had three complaints upheld against it in 12 months, according to research released today. The findings of a ...
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Bar Professional Training Course students 'not up to it'
Too many people on the Bar Professional Training Course are ‘wasting their money’ because they are ‘not up to it’, the chair of the bar’s regulator declared last week. Lady Deech, chair of the Bar Standards Board, said the BSB would press ahead with its plans to introduce aptitude and ...
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Kenneth Clarke: Bribery Act guidance is clear
The justice secretary has moved to reassure ‘honest’ businesses that they will not need to spend ‘millions’ on new systems to comply with the Bribery Act, whatever they may have been told by advisers. Ken Clarke told parliament that lawyers and consultants ‘will, of course, ...
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Lloyds Banking Group heeds Law Society confidentiality concerns
Lloyds Banking Group will no longer ask its conveyancing panel members to provide client account information, after the Law Society raised concerns with the lender over the risk of breaches of client confidentiality. The Society has advised firms that if any lender asks them for client ...
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Cuts to put half of legal aid firms at risk of closure
The ‘catastrophic impact’ of the government’s proposed legal aid cuts could leave 50% of firms doing publicly funded work at risk of closure, according to research commissioned by the Law Society, seen exclusively by the Gazette. Consultants Andrew Otterburn and Vicky Ling surveyed 163 civil and ...
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London solicitor criticises 'absurd' situation over conditional fee agreement
A London solicitor could be left tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket after a judge ruled that the funding agreement under which he accepted a case was unenforceable. Joe Golstein, at the time sole principal at Arbeid & Golstein, took on a clinical negligence ...
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One in two children in care 'don't trust the courts'
Half of the children in care do not trust the court to make the right decision about their lives, according to a report by Children’s Rights director Roger Morgan, published by Ofsted. Of 58 children interviewed, 50% thought courts never or do not usually make the ...
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Justice system delays endemic, research shows
Law Society research submitted to the government last week has identified a ‘lack of communication’ pervading the justice system that is causing delays throughout the process. The survey of 245 individuals in the justice system, including 172 defence solicitors and 55 prosecutors, showed that respondents attributed ...
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APIL chief urges government to give RTA portal a chance
The road traffic accident claims portal should be ‘given a chance’ before the government rushes to implement the Jackson civil justice reforms, the president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers warned last week. Muiris Lyons said that the RTA claims process, which was implemented on ...
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Stick to the law
With the Jackson Review demonstrates once again is that members of the judiciary should never be asked to advise on anything to do with costs or funding. Judges notoriously know nothing about either. Eminent though he is as a lawyer, it is apparent from Lord Justice ...
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Filing complaints
I recently had the misfortune to have dealings with the supreme legal quango, the Legal Ombudsman. What is so concerning about this organisation’s approach to handling complaints is how it applies one rule for us and a different rule for itself. Rather than, for example, ...
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Look who’s talking
I was astonished to read the comments of Sadiq Khan MP, shadow justice secretary, in which he described the government’s proposed legal aid cuts as ‘irresponsible and inequitable’. I have no recollection of Mr Khan expressing his concerns about the cuts introduced by his own ...