All News articles – Page 1319
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News
The SRA and referral fees
I attended the SRA's seminar on referral fees on 19 November. It was part of its consultation exercise on implementing the poisoned chalice of the ban on referral fees for personal injury cases. It was well attended and the SRA ought to take credit for listening to the worried and ...
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No legal aid cuts for social welfare appeals
The government suffered a rare ‘fatal defeat’ in the House of Lords last night on a regulation that would have denied legal help to people appealing welfare benefits on a point of law in first-tier tribunals. It also agreed to amend a regulation which opponents ...
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Portal and fixed fees – the consequences?
by Julie Carlisle, an associate at Henmans LLP Paul Evans of AXA tweeted recently in support of the government’s proposals for reduced portal and fixed fees: ‘Stripping out lawyers... obscene profits for whiplash claims will lead to lower premiums - good news for honest drivers.’
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Bill would spare ‘innovative’ doctors from negligence risks
Conservative peer Lord Saatchi has introduced a bill that would exempt doctors from being held liable for clinical negligence if they ‘innovate’ during cancer treatment. Saatchi (pictured) brought forward the Medical Innovation Bill after his wife, the writer Josephine Hart, died from peritoneal cancer in June ...
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A professional lesson from Belarus
There is a country in Europe, bordered by three member states of the EU (Latvia, Lithuania and Poland), where lawyers suffer grievously for carrying out their professional duties - Belarus, often called Europe’s last dictatorship.
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Commission to probe impact of legal aid cuts
Campaigning charity the Legal Action Group has set up a commission to examine the impact of the legal aid cuts and develop a strategy to help ensure public access to justice. The Low Commission on the Future of Advice and Legal Support is chaired by crossbench ...
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Scottish society takes high road to ABS-style licensing
The Law Society of Scotland could license new legal businesses by spring after submitting its application to regulate the new entities. The society applied to the Scottish government to become an approved regulator of new licensed legal service providers (LPs), the Scottish equivalent of alternative business ...
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Quindell snaps up law firm and claims manager in £60m deal
Fast-growing new legal entrant Quindell has announced a deal worth more than £60m to buy a leading claims management company and a law firm. AIM-listed Quindell Portfolio, which has already bought two law firms this year, today confirmed an agreement with Abstract Legal Holdings, the parent ...
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Danny Nightingale hysteria sets worrying precedent
No one could fail to be moved by the pictures of Danny Nightingale reunited with his family yesterday. Most happy of all, I suspect, were the tabloid newspapers who lapped up the story with relish and conveniently found a reason to relegate the Leveson report to the inside pages.
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Mediators honoured in CEDR awards
Magic circle firm Linklaters was among the winners of the biannual CEDR (Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution) awards presented last night in London. It won the award for alternative dispute resolution and civil justice innovation for setting up the Commercial Mediation Group in January this year. ...
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SRA awaiting 19,000 renewal applications with only two weeks to go
More than half the expected applications for practising certificate renewal are still to be received with just two weeks of the process remaining. The Solicitors Regulation Authority today revealed that more than 18,000 bulk or single applications are completed or nearing completion, out of an expected ...
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Government launches £300,000 web app for divorce
Separating parents will be able to find free advice and guidance through a web app released this week by the government. ‘Sorting out Separation’ provides information about all aspects of separation, from how to avoid a separation to coping with the emotional impact of breaking ...
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News
Professional priorities
James Caan, described as a private equity investor, is reported in your issue of 1 November as complaining that the solicitors’ profession is ‘reluctant to prioritise making money’. If this is true, then the situation is much better than I had feared. Surely a reluctance to ...
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Minister for murder
There have not been too many solicitors, or barristers for that matter, who have been convicted of murder, writes James Morton. In the 1920s Major Armstrong, who murdered his wife, springs to mind and a few months before him another solicitor, Harold Greenwood, was acquitted of the murder of his. ...
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UKBA warns lawyers over ‘queue-jumping’
Immigration lawyers who help clients queue-jump an appointments system for work permits risk sanctions that could end their practice, the UK Border Agency has warned. In what is known as ‘a 3am appointment’, immigration advisers, including solicitors, use fictitious client names to book appointments online ...
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Implement Jackson reforms for media litigation, says Leveson
A call for Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals on costs to be introduced for defamation, privacy, breach of confidence ‘and similar media-related litigation’ appears in the Leveson report on the press published today. In his report, Lord Justice Leveson proposes a new law to create an independent ...
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Novel idea
It sounds as though Peter Elliott (‘Litigants in person "need more support"’) is asking for some sort of state-funded legal assistance, in order to ensure that everyone has access to justice. What a novel idea. I am not sure it will ever catch on with the powers that be. ...
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Human rights
Right to a fair hearing – Access to a court – Claimant being subject of civil restraining order Senior-Milne v Secretary of State for Justice: Queen's Bench Division, Administrative Court (London) (Mr Justice Coulson): 30 October 2012 ...
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Unearthing history
I thought your readers may be interested, or indeed be able to provide some additional information, regarding an unusual charge I recently came across in a title for a property built in the 1970s on Denge Marsh, Kent.