Latest news – Page 746
-
News
Students launch pro bono projects
The City Law School has joined forces with civil liberties group Liberty to launch a pro bono human rights advice clinic. The clinic, due to go live imminently, will give student solicitors and barristers a platform from which to advise members of the public on a ...
-
News
Cuts will ‘prevent young lawyers from entering legal aid sector’
The proposed cuts to legal aid could prevent low-income students from entering the legal aid sector, the Junior Lawyers Division has warned. In response to the government’s consultation on legal aid reform, the JLD has said that the proposed £350m budget cuts will ‘severely affect’ entry ...
-
News
Legal executive numbers grow
The ranks of legal executives are set to swell, as the number of people sitting Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX) examinations climbed 40% in 2010 compared with the previous year. The examinations were taken for the Level 3 Professional Diploma in Law and Practice, which is ...
-
News
Conveyancing Quality Scheme advertising campaign to launch
The Law Society is to launch a consumer-facing advertising campaign to promote its Conveyancing Quality Scheme this spring, it said last week. The campaign will feature online ‘pay per click’ banner advertising, as well as promotional material including posters and stickers which will be made available ...
-
News
College of Law launches two-year law degree
The College of Law has developed a two-year law degree that will focus on improving students’ employment prospects and practical legal skills while covering the curriculum in the same depth as a traditional three-year course, it said this week.
-
News
Solicitor Deal to head Appeals Unit
Solicitor Angela Deal (pictured) is to head the new specialist Appeals Unit launched today by the Crown Prosecution Service. The Appeals Unit, which is part of the Special Crime Division at CPS headquarters, was initially set up in June 2010, but has been taking on ...
-
News
STEP members optimistic about 2011
More than half of the respondents to a survey of trust and estates practitioners expect that business across all areas of the practice they work in will ‘improve’ or ‘improve significantly’ over the coming year, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) has reported.
-
News
Chancery Lane hails landmark ruling on access to justice
Solicitors must be allowed to shoulder the risk of adverse costs orders on behalf of their clients to ensure proper access to justice, the Court of Appeal ruled today. Giving judgment in Sibthorpe and Morris v London Borough of Southwark, the court said that a conditional ...
-
News
'Poor financial management’ at MoJ, committee concludes
The Ministry of Justice risks making ‘ill-informed’ cuts to services when attempting to slash £2bn from its budget, unless it gathers adequate data and fully understands what it spends, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said today.
-
News
Legal professionals reveal ‘sins’ in survey
One in four lawyers and legal professionals does online shopping at work, while one in eight confesses to doing something at an office party that they later regretted, a recent survey of 500 members of the profession has revealed. Research by twosteps online job board also ...
-
News
Withers to open in Zurich to meet high-net-worth demand
City firm Withers will open an office in Zurich to cope with increasing demand from high-net-worth clients, the firm said today. The new office, set to open in April, will be headed by UK tax and trust partner Judith Ingham. The firm, which opened an office ...
-
News
More than 1,000 solicitors support Will Aid charity scheme
More than 1,100 solicitors have participated in a will-writing scheme that is set to raise at least £1.5m for nine UK charities. Solicitors all over the country took part in November 2010’s Will Aid campaign, forgoing their usual fee for preparing a will, and instead asking ...
-
News
Bar Council seeks to raise its profile in Russia
The Bar Council has announced it is to send a delegation to Moscow and Kiev to raise its profile in the former Soviet republics. The trip next week, which will be led by bar chairman Peter Lodder QC, is supported by the British embassies in Russia ...
-
News
Law firm creates ‘accident app’
A 150-year-old Manchester law firm has created an iPhone ‘accident app’ which it claims could revolutionise the personal injury claims process. Croftons has released the iPhone app to help claimants gather accurate evidence and information after an accident at work or on the road, and provide ...
-
News
Prosecute solicitors who lie to PII insurers, says Law Society
The Solicitors Regulation Authority should prosecute every solicitor who lies on their professional indemnity insurance (PII) application form, the chief executive of the Law Society said yesterday. Speaking at an Association of British Insurers (ABI) seminar on solicitors’ PII, Desmond Hudson said that the profession 'needs ...
-
News
Litigants in person set to rise
The Law Society has warned that the courts could be ‘thronged by countless individuals unable to have a lawyer, like a scene from Pickwick Papers’, if the government presses ahead with legal aid reforms without conducting research on the likely effect on the number of litigants in person. ...
-
News
LSC pledge on matter starts for legal aid work
The Legal Services Commission has begun allocating new matter starts for family legal aid work to firms on the basis of the amount they received last year, it said last week. Since the High Court ruling that quashed the outcome of the LSC’s family tender in ...
-
News
ABSs ‘won’t drive top firms south’
The Law Society of Scotland has voiced confidence that the nation’s biggest cross-border firms will remain domiciled in Edinburgh, even though they are expected to enjoy less freedom to restructure and raise investment than their English counterparts after the introduction of alternative business structures (ABSs).
-
News
Aspiring judges to get support
The Law Society and Judicial Appointments Commission [JAC] will today launch a joint plan to support solicitors who want to become judges, after an analysis of the appointment of solicitors as judges over the past 10 years.
-
News
Time not called on hourly bills
The hourly billing model for law firms is still ‘largely intact’ and is too profitable for firms to be incentivised to move away from it, according to a leading professional services consultant. Maureen Broderick said her research indicated professional services firms and consultancies that operate in ...