Latest news – Page 751
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Solicitor who 'shamed profession' jailed
A solicitor who ‘brought shame on the profession’ has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years at Croydon Crown Court for his part in an immigration scam. Adeyinka Adeniran, 39, a principal at London firm Julius Ceasar, supplied clients and documents to a bogus college located at a ...
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Students get murder case referred back to Court of Appeal
A group from the University of Bristol have become the first students to succeed in having the case of a convicted murderer referred back to the Court of Appeal through the university’s Innocence Project. The students convinced the Criminal Cases Review Commission to refer the case ...
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Law firms face new year 'cash crunch'
Law firms will face a ‘cash crunch’ at the end of January, but are likely to find it difficult to source finance from their banks, experts warned this week The news came as the Solicitors Regulation Authority revealed that it wrote to the top 50 law ...
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Green paper warning from mental health professionals
The government’s pledge to divert mentally ill people away from the criminal justice system and towards health services is ‘strong on rhetoric’, but understates the extent of the problem, mental health professionals have warned. Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke’s green paper on sentencing and rehabilitation, published this ...
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£1bn paid out to law firms for handling coal miners’ claims
Some 19 law firms each received more than £10m in fees for handling claims on behalf of former coal miners who contracted lung disease in the course of their work, parliamentary records show. More than 500 firms handled at least one claim for chronic obstructive pulmonary ...
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City claims EC proposal would 'dilute English law'
A European Commission proposal to consolidate contract law across the EU would hamper international trade by diluting the strength of English law, City lawyers have warned. Responding to a Ministry of Justice call for evidence on a European Commission green paper proposing a new European contract ...
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Law Society sets up lobbying working party
The Law Society has set up a working party to address government plans to force law firms to disclose the identities of their lobbying clients, after the coalition government said it will establish a register of lobbyists in a bill to be introduced next year. ...
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Judiciary has failed to lure City lawyers, lord chief justice admits
The head of the judiciary has admitted being ‘unsuccessful’ in persuading City lawyers to become judges. Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge told the Lords Constitution Committee yesterday that, if he could persuade City lawyers and their firms that a judicial career is a plausible option, ‘we ...
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SRA consults on simplifying regulation for sole practitioners
Sole practitioners should no longer be required to have their practising certificate endorsed every year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has proposed, publishing a consultation on the matter this week. Instead, the SRA has proposed that sole practitioner firms will be indefinitely authorised from 31 March 2012. ...
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Firms set to be forced to publish diversity data
Law firms and barristers’ chambers will be forced to publish data about the diversity of their legal staff, under plans unveiled by the Legal Services Board today. Publishing a consultation, Increasing diversity and social mobility in the legal workforce: transparency and evidence, the LSB said that ...
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Allen & Overy faces lawsuit over employee sacked for erotic blog
A former Allen & Overy solicitor sacked for writing an erotic blog that allegedly used the names of her co-workers and a client is claiming £3.5m compensation from the firm for unfair dismissal and sex discrimination. Former senior associate Deidre Clark, 44, who wrote under the ...
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Government announces court closures
The justice minister Jonathan Djanogly announced today that 93 magistrates’ courts and 49 county courts will be closed as part of the government’s drive to improve the justice system. The government says the move will save an estimated £41.5m, alongside a possible £35.8m raised from the ...
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Consumers unattracted by non-legal brands, survey suggests
Two-thirds of consumers would not want to buy their legal services through non-legal brands, according to a survey of 2,000 clients seen exclusively by the Gazette. In the poll by law firm referral service Contact Law, 66% of consumers said they would not be happy to ...
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Leading Sheffield firm falls victim to downturn
Century-old Sheffield law firm Ashton Morton Slack LLP has collapsed into administration, becoming the latest regional casualty of the economic downturn. Administrators from BDO, appointed by the limited liability partnership’s members last Friday, blamed the firm’s demise on cashflow problems arising from declining volumes of work and increasing overheads. ...
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Youth crime has fallen, report suggests
The volume of crime committed by young people has fallen by 25% over the last decade, according to a report published today by the National Audit Office. However, the report reveals that those offenders who receive serious community sentences or custodial sentences remain just as likely ...
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The court system isn’t for everyone
I am writing to congratulate Lord Justice Jackson on his splendid recommendations for the reform of civil costs, and in particular the proposed removal of after-the-event insurance. I have long been of the opinion that people from a working-class background should not have access to the ...
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Consumer interest must be paramount
I am instructed by a lady awaiting estate money due to her. She had rung her solicitor only to hear a recorded message saying that the firm had ‘closed until further notice’. The firm had in fact been the subject of an intervention by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. I duly ...
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Duncan Lewis courts FTSE takeover
Duncan Lewis, the country’s biggest civil legal aid law firm, is preparing to be taken over by a public company once reforms allow, the Gazette can reveal. The London firm is discussing a takeover with a company listed on the FTSE 250 index, and said it ...
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Where there’s a will
Your recent article, Rise in number of intestacy disputes, highlighted two interesting issues: hard times encourage people to contest inheritances; and intestacies offer more opportunities for such disputes to take place. My summary of this state of affairs is that necessity and greed are powerful motivators of human behaviour, and ...
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PII reforms a ‘disaster’ for high street
Plans for reform of the professional indemnity insurance rules could ‘hand control of the conveyancing market to lenders and insurers’, solicitors have been warned. Former Law Society president Paul Marsh, an industry specialist, said the proposals are ‘potentially a disaster’ for high street conveyancers.