All articles by Michael Cross – Page 120
-
News
‘Common sense’ test proposed for prosecutions
Prosecution decisions would have to be tested for ‘proportionality’ under a proposed revised Code for Crown Prosecutors published by the director of public prosecutions yesterday. The revised, ‘more succinct’, code would supplement the existing public interest test with a question about whether the likely outcome ...
-
News
Rights bill commission seeks second opinion
A right to administrative justice and trial by jury are among measures that may be proposed for a future UK Bill of Rights, the body set up to investigate the need for a bill has suggested. In its second consultation, which opened yesterday, the Commission on ...
-
News
Review of super-regulators calls for more openness
The Legal Services Board and the Office for Legal Complaints should open their board meetings to the public and publish all items of spending over £500, a Ministry of Justice Review has recommended. The report of the first triennial review of bodies established under the 2007 ...
-
News
Three-way split for European patent court
A long battle over the jurisdiction and location of Europe’s new patent court appears to have been settled with a decision to split the court’s operations in three and separate it from the European Court of Justice. Ministers at last week’s Brussels summit agreed that the seat of the Unified ...
-
News
Chancery Lane unveils composite PII form
The Law Society has asked brokers and insurers to adopt a composite proposal form for professional indemnity insurance (PII) in an effort to simplify the process of obtaining multiple quotes. The Society said it had secured support for its composite form from ‘some of the major ...
-
News
Court lists and performance data to go online
Court lists and data on individual courts’ performance are to be made available online under plans expected to be published by the government today. A ‘right to data’ white paper from the Cabinet Office will also set out a timetable for publishing judges’ sentencing remarks online, ahead of their planned ...
-
News
Society in new drive for common PII proposal form
The Law Society today asked brokers and insurers to adopt a composite proposal form for professional indemnity insurance (PII) in an effort to simplify the process of obtaining multiple quotes. The Society said it had secured support for its composite proposal form amongst ‘some of ...
-
News
SRA moves to reassure firms hit by bank computer woes
Banks paralysed by computer problems have promised to indemnify solicitors against any losses caused by the breakdown, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said today. The regulator in turn promised that no disciplinary action would be taken against firms caught out by the system failures.
-
News
Canadian firm among .law domain applicants
A Canadian firm is seeking rights to the suffix .law on website addresses instead of current ‘top level domains’ such as .com. Merchant Law Group LLP is listed among eight applicants for the suffixes .law or .lawyer in a new list of potential domains issued ...
-
News
Shropshire Council sets up legal company
A local authority is to incorporate its own trading company to supply legal and other support services. Shropshire Council last week endorsed a plan for setting up the new company, to be known as ip&e group Limited, standing for ‘Inspiring Partnerships and Enterprise’. ...
-
News
Why I plotted to smuggle explosives
My palms sweat when I think about it now, but I was once party to a plot to smuggle plastic explosives into the Palace of Westminster.
-
News
Top firms told to stop cherry-picking from Oxbridge
Law firms are still recruiting from a narrow elite pool of graduates, the government’s independent reviewer on social mobility and child poverty reports today. The Labour former minister Alan Milburn (pictured) said today that access to professions remains dominated by people from wealthy socio-economic backgrounds, ...
-
News
General training ‘failing’, consumer watchdog tells review
Regular re-accreditation and an end to the ‘general practitioner model’ of training are among the reforms called for by the Legal Services Consumer Panel in its submission to the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) today. The consumer watchdog tells the review that the current system ...
-
News
Government moves to adopt deferred prosecutions
Long-expected plans to enable US-style deferred prosecutions for white-collar crimes take a step forward with the publication of a Ministry of Justice consultation today. Under a deferred prosecution the authorities and a malefactor business can agree a penalty to be imposed if the business does ...
-
News
Society ponders non-solicitor representation
Admission of non-solicitors to the Law Society has returned to the agenda following conference speeches by the president and his successor-but-one.
-
News
Defamation Bill ‘a sop to media’ says libel lawyer
Proposals in the Queen’s speech to implement the draft Defamation Bill in the next parliamentary session attracted a mixed response. A bill ‘to protect freedom of speech and reform the law of defamation’ is expected to restrict the use of ‘forum shopping’ by overseas litigants and to introduce a new ...
-
News
Russell Jones & Walker approved as ABS
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has cleared the Australian takeover of top-100 firm Russell Jones & Walker by licensing it as an alternative business structure (ABS), it announced today. RJW, acquired by Slater & Gordon earlier this year, is the fifth ABS firm to be ...
-
News
Consumer panel to probe financial protection arrangements
The ability of regulators’ financial protection arrangements to cope with the high level of firms in distress is to come under the scrutiny of the consumer legal watchdog. In its work programme for 2012-13, published today, the Legal Services Consumer Panel says the capacity of ...
-
News
Day in court
The day after press day on a weekly newspaper is a good one for editors to get out to see a bit of the real world. I spent last Thursday in Court 1, Southwark Crown court, watching the opening stages of what everyone expects to be a lengthy trial concerning ...
-
News
‘Daft’ FoI requests can be ignored
Public bodies can safely ignore requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) for their plans to deal with zombie invasions. Graham Smith, deputy information commissioner, told the Solicitors in Local Government annual weekend school last week that ‘silly and daft’ requests would be covered by existing guidance on vexatious ...