All articles by Michael Cross – Page 119
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Cut oral hearings, says Slaughter and May’s Boardman
An influential magic circle partner today makes a public call for a reduction in oral hearings to reform a legal system which he says has returned to the ‘dark days’ described in Dickens’ Bleak House. Nigel Boardman, partner at Slaughter and May, says lawyers should ...
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Hudson warning over failure to modernise conveyancing
Failure to computerise the conveyancing process could damage the UK economy, the chief executive of the Law Society has told a United Nations conference. Speaking at a UN Economic Commission for Europe event on the role of land registration in economic recovery, Desmond Hudson (pictured) ...
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War tribunal ‘politically motivated’
A barrister representing a prominent Muslim figure in Britain has criticised a tribunal seeking his extradition to Bangladesh on war crimes charges.
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May to announce opt-out of EU justice measures
The home secretary Theresa May will confirm today that government plans to exercise its right to opt out of 130 EU cross-border measures on law and order. She is expected to tell MPs that under an opt-out agreed by the last government when negotiating the ...
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Online legal comparison pioneer to unveil site revamp
Legal services comparison site Wigster is planning a high-profile relaunch following the appointment last week of entrepreneur Matthew Briggs (pictured) as a director. Briggs, who is chief executive of the online claims management business Claims.com, was previously the non-lawyer chief executive of personal injury firm ...
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Solicitors cool on Conservatives' employee share scheme
Chancellor George Osborne’s plan for employees to exchange legal rights for tax-free shares in their workplaces has received a cool reception from employment lawyers. In his speech to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, Osborne said that under the ‘voluntary three-way deal’ employees would ‘replace ...
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Flexible courts: evidence, please
Are flexible and virtual courts a good idea? No one yet has a clue. Not the ministers who in the white paper Swift and Sure Justice moaned about ‘a cultural tolerance of delay’, nor lawyers who fear the consequences for their businesses. What we do ...
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Direct Line hints at legal services plan
Insurance giant Direct Line has confirmed that it is considering setting up a legal services arm when it is spun off from current owner Royal Bank of Scotland. The revelation appears in a prospectus for a share flotation in the group, due to get under ...
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Kurds fight ‘flood’ of English solicitors
Lawyers in the oil-rich Kurdistan region of Iraq are threatening court action against English solicitors who they accuse of practising in the country without a licence. ‘Our members, 9,000 lawyers, have asked us to stop the flood of foreign lawyers,’ Wrya Saadi Ahmed (pictured), president of the Kurdish Bar Association, ...
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Let’s have a legal complaints mash-up
Think the Legal Services Ombudsman is going too far by publishing figures of complaints against named law firms? Think again. What if the information was linked to data showing each firm’s geographical location together with that of named solicitors subjected to Solicitors Regulation Authority sanctions?
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Iraq executions heighten justice fears
A spate of executions in Iraq has raised new fears about the conduct of justice in the strife-torn country. The country’s justice ministry has announced nearly 100 hangings so far in 2012, including 26 in two days in August alone. According to campaigners Human Rights Watch, all the executed were ...
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The legal services reform catechism of cliché
My attention has been drawn to a recent tendency to slackness among innovators in the supply and regulation of legal services. I refer of course to the failure to include every possible cliché in emailed announcements concerning the said innovations. As a corrective, the Gazette offers ...
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Law firms 'cut out' of LPO market
The annual global market in outsourcing legal processes has passed the psychologically important billion-dollar (£630m) mark, a market survey claims this week. The 2012 Global LPO Market Study, published by New York-based consultancy The LPO Program, says legal process outsourcing (LPO) employs some 9,000 people. ...
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Cameron turns right in sweeping justice reshuffle
Prime minister David Cameron has confirmed that Chris Grayling will become justice secretary in what was emerging as a comprehensive clear-out of ministers at the Ministry of Justice. Earlier today Kenneth Clarke became a high-profile casualty of Cameron’s first major reshuffle since coming to office. ...
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MoJ pledges claims management clampdown under ombudsman
The government today sets out a long-expected plan to give the Legal Ombudsman responsibility for complaints about claims management companies (CMCs). The move, reported in the Gazette in February, will take place in April next year, the Ministry of Justice will announce.
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Davies gets three more years at consumer panel
The Legal Services Board (LSB) today announced the re-appointment of Elisabeth Davies (pictured) as chair of the Legal Services Consumer Panel. Davies’s new appointment runs from 1 August 2012 to 31 March 2015. She has been interim chair following the resignation last year of Lady Hayter.
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Dog day resolutions
Welcome to the silly season. Charles Dickens once observed: ‘It is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good ships Law and Equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed, iron-fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing clippers, are laid up in ordinary. The Flying Dutchman, with a crew of ...
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LSB confirms PC fee rises
The Legal Services Board today confirmed its acceptance of higher practising certificate fees for 2013, as agreed by the Law Society’s Council in early July. The practising certificate (PC) fee for 2013 will increase by 5%, from £328 to £344, following a reduction of 23% from 2011 to 2012. ...
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Debt judgments down by 27%, new figures show
The combined value of UK debt judgments fell sharply last year, according to statistics collected from courts across the UK. Figures released yesterday by Registry Trust, a non-profit company which runs a UK-wide register of judgment information, also show a rise in the use of ...
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Lasting power of attorney process to go online
The process of applying for lasting powers of attorney (LPA) is to go on the web under proposals announced by the Office of the Public Guardian on Friday. Basic information about individuals subject to powers of attorney would also be posted online, protected only by a password, according to the ...