All News articles – Page 1408
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News
LeO plans rise in compensation maximum
The Legal Ombudsman is planning a 66% rise – to £50,000 – in the maximum amount of compensation it can force lawyers to pay clients who receive poor service. It also plans a six-fold increase – to six years – in the time limit within which clients can lodge a ...
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Civil procedure
Practice - Striking out - Claimant bringing claim for damages and permanent non-disclosure injunction Giggs (previously known as CTB) v News Group Newspapers Ltd and another: Queen's Bench Division (Mr Justice Tugendhat): 2 March 2012 ...
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Firms ‘must diversify to survive’ urges City investor
A City investor in the legal profession has urged firms to diversify if they want to survive. Rob Terry, founder and chief executive of the Quindell Group, which moved to acquire Liverpool personal injury firm Silverbeck Rymer in January, said multi-disciplinary practices are the best ...
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Carry on doctor
With reference to Jerry Pearlman’s letter of 8 March, the lady who first taught me German, on learning that I was a ‘rechtsanwalt’, insisted on calling me ‘Herr Doktor’ because she said that was how all lawyers are addressed in Germany and, as viewers of Inspector Montalbano will know, it ...
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Fraud fears over RTA portal fee cap
Claimant solicitors have reacted with concern to government proposals to cap at £300 the fee for low-value road traffic claims handled through the RTA portal. The proposal emerged at roundtable discussions on the future of the portal with justice minister Jonathan Djanogly (pictured) last Thursday. ...
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Boycott injustice
Congratulations for publishing the comment by Melanie Strickland on the need for lawyers to consider more basic principles of justice than the law presently allows. The letter from David Enright on the ‘justice equation’ in the same edition alerts us to more immediate needs as well.
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Pro bono: are lawyers leading the way?
Working at the National Pro Bono Centre I get to observe a large portion of the organised pro bono activities undertaken by members of the legal profession. One of the first things that struck me when I started working as a caseworker at LawWorks was the scale of the volunteer ...
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SRA dubbed ‘institutionally racist’ by Society of Black Lawyers chair
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to face accusations of being ‘institutionally racist’ and of abusing its powers to the detriment of solicitors from ethnic minorities. In a hard-hitting report to the Legal Services Board, seen by the Gazette, the Society of Black Lawyers accuses the ...
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Legal training: the best routes to becoming a lawyer
Abolishing the concept of the qualifying law degree, more common training for prospective lawyers, replacing the training contract with ‘supervised practice’ and sector-wide CPD – just some of the ‘more radical’ ideas being considered by the profession-wide Legal Education and Training Review (LETR). But just ...
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Don’t bank on loyalty
My firm, along with thousands of others, is no longer on the HSBC panel. As a result of the ludicrous volume of enquiries being raised by the bank’s preferred lawyers for this area in a case I am currently involved in, and because of the unrealistic and unworkable undertakings which ...
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Having a ball
Tony Roe Solicitors, a divorce and family law specialist based in Theale, Reading, is the latest recruit to Obiter’s Brighter Window campaign. The firm’s logo, a rubberband ball, can be seen bouncing across its frontage, the firm’s head, Tony Roe, tells us. ‘The firm’s windows were ...
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‘SupplyCo’ could help barristers get work back from solicitor-advocates
A new business model allowing barristers to accept instructions through an agency route could help the bar claw back work from solicitor-advocates, a legal consultant has suggested. John Binks (pictured) of the Bar Consultancy Network, a former manager at the Legal Services Commission, said a ‘SupplyCo’ model would give barristers ...
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Recovering costs where both parties have succeeded in some of their arguments
Even though a party may succeed in obtaining a judgment in its favour, the unsuccessful party may have succeeded in defeating some of the successful party’s arguments. The questions which arise in such a scenario are: which party should be awarded its costs? If the successful party is awarded its ...
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Every public body can produce arguments that it is indispensable
Quangos rarely lobby for their remit to be pruned and the legal sector is no exception. So last week we saw an exasperated Law Society call on the £5m-a-year Legal Services Board to begin downsizing, now that most of the reforms in the Legal Services Act are coming to fruition.
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Blanket approach to civil claims costs unfair
I write in response to a number of recent letters about the funding of civil claims. The biggest cause of unfair costs is the blanket approach of the success fee and the premiums for after-the-event (ATE) insurance (often far in excess of the price of any car insurance policy). ...
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Bank of England job - lawyers need not apply
In the next few months, David Cameron and George Osborne will be looking to recruit a new governor of the Bank of England to succeed Sir Mervyn King when he steps down in June 2013. I trust that no banking lawyer is tempted to apply ...
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A&O sounds note of caution over Asia-Pacific growth prospects
Asia-Pacific economies will not meet the growth expectations of international business because of the slow pace of regulatory reform in China, a magic circle firm has warned. A survey of large international businesses conducted last year by Allen & Overy predicted that by 2020 six ...
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What do you know about the European Ombudsman?
In a pretty park in the European quarter of Brussels is situated the local base of an institution that should be better known to lawyers, since it can provide recourse to clients. The world may be filling up with ombudsmen, but the granddaddy of them all (in European terms) is ...
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Something not right about guideline for either-way offences
Does anyone else smell a rat? A new allocation guideline for either-way offences was published earlier this month by the Sentencing Guidelines Council which comes into force on 11 June. Within the guideline it states: ‘It is important to ensure that all cases are tried at the appropriate level. In ...
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Child abduction
Removal outside jurisdiction - Return order - British mother returning from Australia to UK with child Re S (a child) (international abduction: subjective fear of risk): SC (Justices of the Supreme Court Lords Phillips (president), Mance, Kerr, Wilson, Lady ...