Latest news – Page 823
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News
Law firm wins injunction against departing solicitor
Law firms can obtain a ‘springboard’ injunction to prevent solicitors from taking clients with them if they leave suddenly, a High Court decision has indicated – even if their employment contract does not expressly forbid taking clients.
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Family lawyer fears over guardians’ ‘dangerous’ caseloads
Leading family lawyer Christina Blacklaws has hit out at the ‘dangerous’ workload of employed guardians at the Children and Family Court Advisory Service (Cafcass). Her broadside came as the government prepared to announce a further £1.6m in funding for Cafcass’s London region this week, on condition ...
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Sole practitioners removed from Co-Op panel as no deal reached
Sole practitioners in England and Wales have been removed from the conveyancing panel of the merged Britannia Building Society and Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) after negotiations with the Law Society failed to reach agreement. However, their colleagues in Scotland and Northern Ireland have been granted an ...
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Law firms should be able to ‘self govern’, says Hunt report
By Paul RogersonA wide-ranging review of solicitors’ regulation commissioned last year by the Law Society and conducted by Lord Hunt of Wirral was published on Monday. Among the Tory peer’s 88 ?recommendations is a proposal for what he describes as ‘authorised internal regulation’, a new system of self-governance available ...
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Office for Legal Complaints to be based in Birmingham
The Office for Legal Complaints, the new body created by the Legal Services Act 2007 to handle complaints about solicitors, is to be based in Birmingham. The OLC, which has been allocated set-up costs of around £15m and annual running costs of £19.9m, will replace the ...
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SRA considers reducing premium in assigned risks pool
The Solicitors Regulation Authority held a meeting this week to consider whether or not to reduce assigned risks pool (ARP) insurance premiums after a record number of firms were forced to join the pool.
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City law firms to lose out to regions
Regional law firms look set to benefit at the expense of their City rivals in the coming year, research seen by the Gazette has indicated. A survey by research agency Acritas of 500 senior in-house counsel at large and mid-sized organisations showed that 29% were planning ...
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Lovells ‘in US merger talks’
City firm Lovells and US firm Hogan & Hartson are discussing a merger to create a firm with combined revenues of more than £1bn, according to reports. The firm would comprise 2,500 lawyers and would be among the 10 largest in the world if the tie-up ...
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London councils slash £1.5m in legal spend
Six London boroughs have joined together to slash almost £1.5m a year in legal fees. The London Boroughs Legal Alliance (LBLA), which links lawyers from Harrow, Hammersmith & Fulham, Camden, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Kensington & Chelsea borough councils, aims to save £1.44m a year by using ...
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MoJ announces review of legal aid delivery
The Ministry of Justice has today announced a review into the delivery of legal aid to ensure the £2bn budget is spent correctly. Legal aid minister Lord Bach has asked Sir Ian Magee, a former permanent secretary at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, to assess the ...
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Chancery Lane ‘dismay’ at Co-op’s panel cull
The Law Society has expressed its ‘dismay’ at the decision by Co-operative Financial Services to cut 3,600 sole practitioners from its conveyancing panel. The Society said that the Co-op has jeopardised its ethical image by threatening consumer choice and putting solicitors’ livelihoods at risk. Access to ...
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Lord Hunt publishes regulation review
A wide-ranging review of solicitors' regulation commissioned by the Law Society and conducted by Lord Hunt of Wirral (pictured) is published today. Among the Tory peer's 88 recommendations is a proposal for what he describes as 'authorised internal regulation', under which law firms of all sizes would regulate themselves subject ...
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Society's PII helpline to target assigned risks pool
The Law Society has announced that from next Monday, 5 October, its professional indemnity insurance helpline will expand its service to assist firms that have fallen into the assigned risks pool because they were unable to obtain cover before the renewal deadline.
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Horses for courses
A friend passed me an article entitled ‘Taking the reins’, by Lucy Trevelyan, about equine law (see [2008] Gazette, 7 August, 14). As I am a life-long horsewoman (and journalist who sometimes writes for the equestrian press) I found it really interesting.
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Let’s be practical
As a newly qualified lawyer, I note with interest that the Legal Services Policy Institute is proposing that the training contract be scrapped. Yes, it is difficult to get a training contract in the current climate and yes, it is even more difficult to secure employment after completion of training. ...
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Valuable training
I am disappointed to read of the Legal Services Policy Institute’s suggestion that training contracts be scrapped and that students qualify immediately upon completion of the LPC (see [2009] Gazette, 24 September, 1).
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Discouraging words
The headline ‘Firms "over the worst" of recession’ (see [2009] Gazette, 24 September, 1) may have been intended to be encouraging, but readers will have been struck by the extraordinary insensitivity of the wording of the report, which said that firms were ‘finally reaping the rewards of staff cuts’.
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Solution to the insurance crisis
As someone who practises in the field of property mortgage fraud claims, it gives me no comfort to say that I foresaw that PI premiums would escalate and – coupled with the drop in conveyancing caused by the recession – create the financial crisis for solicitors reported in your front-page ...
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Serious Fraud Office to demand privilege waivers in plea bargains
Companies wanting to enter into plea bargains with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) will have to waive privilege rights over previous internal investigations, a solicitor suggested this week, after the SFO completed its first successful prosecution of a British company for overseas corruption. British bridge contractor ...
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Insider dealing prosecution
Two former City lawyers charged with eight counts of insider dealing by the Financial Services Authority have been committed to stand trial at Southwark Crown Court. Andrew Rimmington, former partner at US firm Dorsey & Whitney, and Michael McFall, former partner at US firm McDermott Will ...