Latest news – Page 818
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Bar rules delay blamed for low LDP take-up
The delay in the relaxation of rules preventing barristers from entering law firm partnerships has been blamed for the low take-up of the first wave of new legal business structures. According to the latest Solicitors Regulation Authority figures, 216 legal disciplinary partnerships were up and running ...
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Solicitor fears over further legal aid cuts
Solicitors warned of the consequences of further legal aid cuts this week as the government announced it was to slash £325m from the Ministry of Justice’s 2010/11 budget. Law Society president Robert Heslett said it was essential that the axe should not fall on legal aid ...
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Regional firms risk losing corporate talent to London
A sharp rise in recruitment of corporate solicitors in London could set in motion a talent drain from regional firms, recruiters told the Gazette this week. Recruitment consultants said City firms are rushing to hire corporate lawyers after making excessive cutbacks at the height of the ...
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Solicitors celebrate the demise of HIPs
Solicitors celebrated the end of the home information pack ‘disaster’ last week. The coalition government scrapped HIPs after election manifesto commitments from both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to ditch the packs. Sellers will still need an energy performance certificate. The ...
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OFT chief slams 'excessive demands' of defendant lawyers
The delaying tactics and ‘excessive demands’ of defendant lawyers in competition actions are hampering cases and draining the resources of competition authorities, the chairman of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) alleged last week. Philip Collins told the Law Society competition section’s annual conference that the ...
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Denton Wilde Sapte set for transatlantic merger
City firm Denton Wilde Sapte and US firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal are set to merge to create a 1,400-lawyer transatlantic firm. The merged firm would have combined revenues of around £500m and would span 18 countries. The firms’ management boards have ...
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Government to scrap ID cards
Identity cards for British citizens are to be scrapped within 100 days, the Home Office announced today. The National Identity Register, the database containing the biographic and biometric fingerprint data of cardholders, is also to be destroyed.
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Law firms must tell clients how to complain, says LSB
Lawyers must provide clear information to clients about how they can complain about the service they receive, the Legal Services Board said today. Noting ‘a perception of poor complaints handling by [legal] regulators and the individuals and entities that they regulate,’ the LSB said that firms ...
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Law Society president warns of looming threat to profession’s independence
The Legal Services Board’s proximity to government could threaten the independence of the legal profession, Law Society president Robert Heslett warned last night. In a speech at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, Heslett questioned the need for the LSB’s ‘draconian’ power to seize control ...
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Law firms fail to maximise internet exposure
Law firms are failing to maximise their exposure to online consumers by improving their rankings with search engines, a report has shown. A study of by consultants Greenlight showed that 1.2m searches were performed in February for legal-related keywords, with 450,000 searches for ‘solicitor’. ...
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MoJ to cut £325m
The government is to cut £325m from the Ministry of Justice’s budget, it said today. The cuts will form part of £6.2bn in savings aimed at reducing the UK’s deficit, outlined by the chief secretary to the Treasury David Laws today. The ...
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MoJ unveils new ministers’ portfolios
The Ministry of Justice has announced the roles of its new ministerial team overseen by justice secretary Kenneth Clarke, with the legal aid brief handed to former City lawyer Jonathan Djanogly. Tom McNally, minister of state and deputy leader of the House of Lords, will have ...
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Double standard
The conduct of elections has come under the microscope in recent weeks. Joshua Rozenberg noted (see [2010] Gazette, 13 May, 8) that section 23 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 says that ‘no parliamentary election shall be declared invalid by reason of any act or omission by the ...
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Moving towards a fairer system
We understand the reluctance of Simon Osborne (see [2010] Gazette, 13 May, 13), as somebody who does only pro bono work and does not hold client funds, to pay the full practising certificate fee.
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Time for action on panel purgatory
As a residential property specialist, I am accustomed to being the ‘poor relation’ in a law firm. As every week goes by, the administrative burden increases; client and estate agents’ demands become ever more ambitious and unrealistic; and downward pressure on fees continues.
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Competence to practice
I read with some interest about the various proposals for solicitors to undergo ‘real time’ peer review to assist in measuring their competence (see [2010] Gazette, 1 April, 1). While the proposals strike me as overly burdensome, the issue of competence is certainly a relevant inquiry.
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Saudi electric issues sukuk and Polish exchange listing
Saudi sukuk: Allen & Overy, with affiliate Saudi firm Abdulaziz AlGasim, advised Saudi Electricity Company on issuing a SAR7bn (£1.3bn) sukuk. US firm Latham & Watkins, with Saudi firm Law Office of Mohammed Al-Sheikh, advised joint lead managers HSBC Saudi Arabia and Samba ...
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Lawyer fears over Tories’ FSA U-turn
City lawyers have criticised an apparent U-turn by the Conservatives over their plans to scrap the Financial Services Authority (pictured) and hand its fraud-busting powers to a new agency. According to reports, the Conservative manifesto plan to scrap the FSA has been scuppered by the Liberal ...
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Court of Appeal rules on plea bargain sentencing
White-collar criminals sentenced to a year or less in jail should have their sentences suspended if they cooperate fully with related fraud investigations, the Court of Appeal ruled last week. The lord chief justice Sir Igor Judge (pictured), presiding in R v Dougall, chastised the Serious ...
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Ex-lawyer campaigns for civil liberties in China
A man wrongfully detained in a Chinese mental hospital for six and a half years was released earlier this month following pressure from a commercial lawyer turned civil liberties activist. Former commercial lawyer Alice XT Huang, who visited London as a guest of the Law Society ...