All News articles – Page 1354
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News
Training solicitors – a qualified success
Tucked away in the new year’s press was an announcement of an apprenticeship route to qualification as a solicitor. I wondered why and when the profession abandoned the five-year article route. Over the years there have been, as there is now, a number of ...
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Flexed ABS and flip-flops – my predictions for 2013
I’ll admit it’s been a slow start to 2013 here at Gazette Towers. So slow, in fact, that my ‘2013 predictions’ piece is now three days overdue. If I left it any later this piece would have to be a recap on the year so far. So my apologies for ...
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Cherie Booth’s consultancy among latest ABS approvals
An international legal consultancy chaired by Cherie Booth QC and a franchise for individual lawyers are among a glut of new year alternative business structure (ABS) announcements. In the space of 24 hours, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has confirmed seven new ABSs to bring the total ...
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Nicklinson posthumous right-to-die appeal
A widow has been granted leave to continue her late husband’s challenge to the existing law on murder and assisted suicide. The Court of Appeal has made an order that Jane Nicklinson (pictured, left), as the administrator of her late husband Tony’s estate, may take forward ...
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Society calls for freeze on civil justice reform
The government must postpone all further civil justice reforms until lawyers have had sufficient time to prepare for change, the Law Society said today. Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff welcomed justice secretary Chris Grayling’s decision to halt April’s expansion of the RTA Portal – confirmed over ...
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Co-op fined for PPI complaints-handling
The Co-operative Bank has been fined £113,000 for failing to handle payment protection insurance (PPI) complaints fairly. The bank had put a ‘significant proportion’ of its 1,629 complaints on hold in 2011 whilst the British Bankers Association’s ultimately unsuccessful High Court challenge to new Financial Services ...
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The gong show 2013
Twenty years after John Major sought to open up the honours system by introducing ‘people’s honours’, the twice-yearly hand-out of gongs is as predictable as ever. Look at the new year crop, especially when it comes to the legal world.
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Ombudsman sets out new fees plan
A tougher approach to ‘free’ investigations will allow the Legal Ombudsman to raise an extra £1.6m through case fees in 2013/14, the ombudsman’s office revealed today. In the coming financial year the ombudsman will charge firms for their first case rather than allow two free ...
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11% of firms still lack compliance officers
Nominated staff at more than 8,800 firms this week took up their new roles as compliance officers. The Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed that individuals at 89% of firms were approved to start work as watchdogs for legal practice, and finance and administration, known as COLPs and ...
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Video to come to 13 more court areas in 2013
Video-link technology will be extended to more than a dozen court areas during the coming year, the justice minister announced today. Thirteen areas, including Avon and Somerset, Cambridgeshire, Sussex, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Dorset, Northamptonshire, Devon and Cornwall, will start using live links in 2013 to allow police ...
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RTA Portal: no plan B as government postpones expansion
The government has refused to reveal an alternative date for extending the RTA Portal scheme after announcing a postponement of its 1 April target today. As the Gazette reported before Christmas, the plan to extend the scheme to handle claims up to £25,000, as well ...
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First day back
One morning during the holiday I popped into the office when the building was well and truly closed. The telephone was ringing and I answered it to give a mouthful to the caller about lawyers needing holidays as well, but it was only a person wishing the firm a happy ...
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Minister signals weekend courts U-turn
The government has indicated that it will drop plans to open courts at weekends, instead introducing longer weekday sittings. It also plans to achieve ‘colossal savings’ by expanding the use of video links between courts, police stations and prisons, and to continue its restorative justice and ...
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Judicial review: the wrong steps for the wrong reasons
by James Packer, a director at Duncan Lewis It is annoying for the government to be told that its actions are unlawful. It is embarrassing for the Home Office to have the disarray in the immigration system exposed in court.
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Allen & Overy’s Wootton leads thin line-up of solicitor honours
David Wootton, partner of magic circle firm Allen & Overy - and last year’s Lord Mayor of London - is one of only a handful of solicitors to feature in the 2013 New Year honours list. Corporate finance specialist Wootton, who was admitted in 1975, receives a knighthood ‘for services ...
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Government backs apprenticeship route to law
Apprenticeships equivalent to BA and MA degrees will soon be available as a route in to the law, the government announced today. In a statement strongly backing professional apprenticeships, Matthew Hancock, the skills minister, said there is no reason why aspiring lawyers cannot attain the ...
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Compliments of the season to all our readers
Thank you for visiting our website in 2012. The Law Society Gazette is now taking a break until 2 January, when our daily newsletter will resume publication: if you have not yet subscribed, please do so via the link to the right. Our next print ...
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News
Quality and compliance – it’s all the same, isn’t it?
Well, no... If you have achieved and maintained a quality standard such as ISO and Lexcel that’s great, but both of these are management standards which enable you to document your processes and procedures and then monitor their effectiveness. Unless your standard has been specifically adapted to deal with ...