All News articles – Page 1347
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News
Legal aid is the key to a diverse profession
Helen Grant, the equalities minister, is calling for a more diverse legal profession and judiciary – one with more women and ethnic minority judges in senior posts. An interview with the London Evening Standard quoted the family solicitor as accusing legal bosses of prolonging male dominance ...
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Mediator fee cost anomaly rankles
There is a striking anomaly caused by the omission of a mediator’s fee from the list of recoverable disbursements in Civil Procedure Rule 45.10 (fixed-costs cases). It means that a receiving party must bear the costs of the mediator’s fee, which creates a disincentive for mediating. ...
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China arbitration fight rocks foreign firms
Fears are growing that arbitration decisions made in two of China’s economic powerhouses may be impossible to enforce as a result of a feud between rival arbitration centres. The dispute began with the release of new arbitration rules by the Beijing-based China International Economic and ...
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More firms ask for help to fund tax bills
The number of law firms that need funding to help pay their January tax bill has jumped by almost 60% since last year, according to a business providing independent finance. Syscap reports that so far this year it has received 410 requests from law firms for ...
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Ask the staff
The annual civil service people survey is a great annual diversion, juxtaposing low levels of staff satisfaction and confidence in the Ministry of Justice’s leadership on the one hand, and hyper-positive confidence of senior management spin on the other. This year my colleague Catherine Baksi reported it as news - ...
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Costs and assessing unreasonable behaviour
The general principle on costs in civil litigation is clear: the unsuccessful party will be ordered to pay the costs of the successful party, albeit that the court has discretion to order otherwise (Civil Procedure Rule 44.3 (2)).
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Judicial review limits attacked
Government plans to limit the number of judicial reviews have been condemned by lawyers and campaign groups. A six-week consultation on the proposals, which the justice secretary says would stop ‘weak or ill-founded’ claims clogging the courts, ended last week apparently without a single response in favour. ...
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Labour warns of Grayling’s ‘Trojan horse’ attacks
Government policies to cut legal aid, and to curtail judicial review and no-win, no-fee arrangements amount to an ‘assault on the critical checks and balances that any healthy democracy needs’, the shadow justice secretary has warned. Sadiq Khan MP told an event to celebrate pro bono ...
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Pinsent Masons boosts outsourcing trend with Krakow deal
City firm Pinsent Masons has become the latest law practice to outsource key services by sending documents to be reviewed in Poland. The firm used Capita’s outsourced legal services operation in Krakow to review aspects of a large dispute. Both parties had ...
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Texas considers plan to open borders to foreigners
The US state of Texas is considering a plan to open its borders to foreign lawyers and compete with New York for the best international talent.
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Brand loyalty – and the ski-jacket owners’ club
Recently I was presenting the results of a mystery shopping campaign, and as commonly happens, the issues of capturing accurate contact details and inadequate follow-up were discussed. Two particular areas of weakness identified were the provision of contact information to the marketing team and failing to ...
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News
Brilliant Law heralds new era
I read that Brilliant Law ‘is founded by non-lawyers, which is a radically different scenario to other law firms'. It is indeed. I read on: ‘That brings with it innovation and a commercial appreciation but also mechanisms to market ourselves differently.’ But ...
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Costs budgeting: why judges need more training
Now that we are only two months from Jackson D-Day, solicitors are waking up to the prospect of costs budgeting. Costs budgeting will require lawyers to think carefully about the likely costs of a trial at an early stage, submit budgets to the court for approval, ...
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Call for care failings disclosure laws
NHS trusts and their lawyers should be forced by law to reveal when care providers have made serious mistakes, campaigners have said in the run-up to the report of the inquiry into alleged failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. Peter Walsh, chief executive of ...
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SRA calms referral fee fears
The Solicitors Regulation Authority will try to appease firms worried about the lack of ‘safe harbour’ advice on coping with the ban on referral fees by publishing genuine case studies of acceptable business models. The regulator last week repeated it will not pre-approve models that ...
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Lord Judge ‘troubled’ by court camera plan
The lord chief justice has voiced opposition to the government’s plan to allow the filming of sentencing in the Crown court. Lord Judge said today he was ‘troubled by cameras swanning around court’. Appearing before the House of Lords constitution committee ...
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DBA caps set by government
Damages based agreements (DBAs) are to be capped at 25% for personal injury and 50% for any other claim, the government confirmed in a statutory instrument setting out how the civil litigation reforms will work when they come into force on 1 April. As expected, DBAs ...
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Ombudsman predicts more cases as compensation limit rises
The Legal Ombudsman is expecting to increase the number of investigations it carries out under new powers coming in to force today. The new rules lift the ceiling on compensation awards from £30,000 to £50,000 and allow the ombudsman to accept complaints from prospective as ...
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Changing the tenor
Readers will know that in Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, soldier Don José falls for the gypsy Carmen, leaving his sweetheart and the army, before losing Carmen to a toreador and killing her in a jealous rage. Obiter finds this ...
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DWF rides to rescue of Cobbetts
National firm DWF has announced its intention to acquire troubled firm Cobbetts.