All News articles – Page 1333

  • News

    Profit a ‘dirty word’ in law, says Dragon’s Den judge

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Entrepreneur and investor James Caan has revealed he found a culture where profit was a ‘dirty word’ when he looked to buy a law firm. Former Dragons Den judge Caan, whose private investment company Hamilton Bradshaw bought Midlands firm Knights in June, said he had spoken ...

  • News

    Court interpreter mess ‘led to custody’, MPs told

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Defendants are being remanded in custody solely because court interpreters have not been sent by the company contracted by the Ministry of Justice to provide them, a parliamentary committee heard this week. Giving evidence to the Justice Committee, the chair of the Law Society’s criminal law ...

  • News

    Support costs

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Once upon a time we filled in the form to renew our annual practising certificates by hand and then continued to do proper work. Now the Gazette brims with articles on the regulatory process and how to live with it. Charles Plant tells us the ...

  • News

    Contract

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Damages for breach – Measure of damages Jet2.com Ltd v S C Compania Nationala de Transporturi Aeriene Romane Tarom SA: Queen's Bench Division, Commercial Court (Judge Mackie QC sitting as a judge of the High Court): 11 October 2012 ...

  • News

    Effective extradition and rights must be combined

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    by Jago Russell, chief executive of Fair Trials International The Gary McKinnon case has again caught the attention following the home secretary’s recent announcement on extradition reform.

  • News

    Civil rights concern over costs-shifting

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Lawyers representing claimants against the police have warned that abuses of state power will go unchallenged under costs reforms coming into force in April. The Police Actions Lawyers Group wants qualified one-way costs-shifting extended from personal injury to cover all civil liberties cases.

  • News

    Salford claims centre rates poorly with solicitors

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Almost two-thirds of users of the Salford civil claims centre rate the service as poor, according to a survey reflecting continued frustration with the new central facility. The figure is among the findings of a poll of 47 legal firms, 40 of which ...

  • News

    Off centre

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Taking up where Nye Moloney left off, I have found the County Court Money Claims Centre (CCMCC) to be lacking. I am uncertain as to how the interaction between the centre and the Northampton Bulk Issue Centre pans out in practice.

  • News

    Victims of human trafficking and the CCRC

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    The Criminal Cases Review Commission (the CCRC) is warning that both defence and prosecution lawyers need to become more alert to the issues relating to victims of human trafficking if miscarriages of justice are to be avoided.

  • News

    Litigation funder targets case ‘portfolios’

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    One of the UK’s biggest litigation funders is in talks with law firms about using alternative business structures to invest in a ‘portfolio’ of their commercial litigation. The move by Harbour Litigation Funding signals what is expected to become a closer relationship between law firms and ...

  • News

    UK contingent in Brazil

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    The Law Society will tell the Brazilian legal sector today that Britain is the place to turn to for international dispute resolution, as it leads a contingent of UK law firms to São Paulo. President Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, whose visit coincides with the Lord Mayor’s trip to ...

  • News

    Ignoring PACE was not ‘brave’

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Is Christopher Halliwell, 48, really likely to ‘walk free’ when he has served the 25-year minimum term he was given for murdering 22-year-old Sian O’Callaghan, as one newspaper reported on Saturday? Sentencing him to life imprisonment a day earlier, Mrs Justice Cox told him: ‘If you are eventually released on ...

  • News

    Pro bono - minding the gap

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    The tough economic climate, coupled with the threat to frontline advice agencies from local authority and legal aid cuts, has dramatically increased demand for free legal help. National Pro Bono Week, which starts on 5 November, will focus attention on the question ‘is something better than nothing?’ as law firms ...

  • News

    QASA curtailment beggars belief

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    I read each week with growing dismay about the long-running saga of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates. This misconceived and unwelcome intrusion into the liberties of our profession may one day restrict, if not deny, our hard-won rights of audience in the higher courts.

  • News

    Wider pool of barristers no threat

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    In focusing on perceived competition between the two branches of the profession (‘"Baby barrister" threat to solicitors’), what Catherine Baksi overlooks are the opportunities for co-operation between barristers and solicitors created by the Public Access Scheme. The bar’s code of conduct requires barristers instructed on a public access basis to ...

  • News

    Beancounter backlash

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    You would hope that, if anyone produced a Top Trumps pack for the professions, both solicitors and accountants would score in the very high 90s for trustworthiness. But to judge by a lively tit-for-tat debate last week between representatives of the two professions, there are sensitivities. ...

  • News

    Human trafficking victims failed by defence teams, CCRC alleges

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Many victims of human trafficking are being failed by defence teams, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) warned this week. All have ignored clear law in numerous prosecutions, it alleges. The commission says there are numerous cases where inadequate ...

  • News

    Todner legal aid fear

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Gary McKinnon’s solicitor has described the future for criminal legal aid firms as ‘very scary’, amid swingeing cuts and payment problems. Karen Todner, who was last week named the Gazette’s Legal Personality of the Year, said: ‘The system is so restrictive in terms of running a business.’ ...

  • News

    Aggressive lawyers ‘harm mediation’

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    Aggression around the mediation table can be counter-productive and damage your client’s chances of success, a leading QC has warned. Bill Wood, vice-chair of the Civil Mediation Council, said he had experienced cases where the two lawyers involved were more angry than the clients. Wood told ...

  • News

    Bar regulator confirms move into ABSs

    2012-10-25T00:00:00Z

    The Bar Standards Board has confirmed it will apply to the Legal Services Board (pictured) to become a licensing authority of alternative business structures in the new year, and could approve its first ABS in early 2014. At a board meeting last week, the bar’s regulator ...