All News articles – Page 1412
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News
UK lawyers leading Camp Ashraf challenge
by Hossein Abedini, a member of parliament in exile of Iranian Resistance At a glance one might ask why UK lawyers are doing all they can to help 3,400 Iranian refugees in a camp based some 3,000 miles away in Iraq. The two groups are not ...
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Civil court group anger over Salford system
A body whose membership spends around £49m a year in the civil courts has questioned why the new centralised facility to handle money claims in civil cases was launched earlier this week without its long-awaited payment by account (PbA) electronic system. The vice chair of the ...
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MPs call for review of legal aid cuts
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has added its voice to calls for an independent assessment of the impact of the government’s cuts to legal aid. In a hard-hitting report on Ministry of Justice finances, the committee said the government’s own impact assessment ‘has ...
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Sole practitioners 'unthreatened' by ABSs
Alternative business structures are more of an opportunity than a threat to sole practitioners, whose numbers are back to pre-recession levels, leaders in the sector have told the Gazette. Latest figures from the Solicitors Regulation Authority show there were 3,568 sole practitioners in February - ...
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Women’s criminal justice policy proposal fails
A proposal to establish a women’s criminal justice policy unit within the Ministry of Justice foundered yesterday after a vote on an amendment to the Legal Aid Sentencing and Criminal Justice Bill was tied. Peers voted evenly, with 217 votes for and 217 against, on an ...
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No referral exemption for charities, Lords rule
The House of Lords has blocked attempts to exempt charities and trade unions from the referral fee ban. The house was debating proposed amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill.
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Alarm over Chinese allegiance oath
Chinese lawyers must promise to ‘fulfil the sacred mission of socialism’ or be denied a licence to practise, the country’s justice ministry ordered yesterday. Among other pledges, China’s lawyers must also now swear ‘loyalty to the motherland and its people’ and vow to ‘uphold the leadership ...
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Advocacy quality scheme deal ‘imminent’
An announcement to break the deadlock over the controversial quality assurance scheme for advocates (QASA) is ‘imminent’, the director of the Bar Standards Board said yesterday.
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Should lawyers welcome the end of the 50p tax rate?
There will be plenty of Gazette readers who do not benefit from the scrapping of the 50p rate of income tax on earnings over £150,000 - though a decade spent covering the City and corporate parts of the legal market means I know very great numbers who are set to ...
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Lukewarm reaction to Osborne's £20bn loan scheme
The legal sector has given a tepid welcome to the £20bn low-interest loan scheme announced by the chancellor in the runup to this week’s budget. William Arthur, consultant at professional services consultancy Kerma Partners, said: ‘There is no sense of a pent-up and unsatisfied demand ...
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Lawyers condemn budget’s £20m legal funding gesture
Chancellor George Osborne today promised £20m a year in new funding for the not-for-profit advice sector over the next two years. The sum was immediately and widely condemned as being not enough to replace shortfalls left by spending cuts. The announcement, in today’s budget, makes available ...
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Outrage at £2.60 wage proposal for trainees
Trainee solicitors could be paid as little as £2.60 an hour in their first year under an amendment to the Solicitors Regulation Authority's proposals for ending the minimum wage. The Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) today condemned the move as another step towards making the legal profession the ‘preserve ...
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Junior lawyers call for pause to minimum wage consultation
Scrapping the minimum wage for trainee solicitors without a thorough impact assessment goes against ‘common sense’ and could bar candidates from less affluent backgrounds from entering the profession, junior lawyers warn today. The Law Society Junior Lawyers Division says in a statement that the Solicitors Regulation ...
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Briton held under European warrant as charity calls for extradition reform
A British man has been arrested under the European arrest warrant (EAW) system for a crime of which he was cleared some 17 years ago, the charity Fair Trials International said today.
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MPs call for audit of legal aid changes
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee today adds its voice to calls for an independent assessment of the impact of the government's cuts to legal aid. In a hard-hitting report on Ministry of Justice finances, the committee says the government’s own impact assessment ...
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Mind your public language, master of rolls tells judges
The master of the rolls has urged judges to use caution in speaking about public matters, warning they risk undermining the independence of the judiciary. Lord Neuberger said judges should be free to comment extra-judicially on a wide range of issues, but that they should be ...
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Peering into the future
We have undertaken a Harry Potter-like task recently at the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), but without the aid of wands or potions: we have tried to predict the future. It is always good to have an idea of what is coming down the line, but ...
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Government regulation of third-party funding shelved - for now
The question of whether third-party investment in litigation should be regulated by government raised its ugly head one final time in the House of Lords last week.
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The current legal landscape
To describe the current legal landscape as interesting would be a real understatement. You could say that a perfect storm is brewing. A variety of different factors mean that the legal sector is undergoing significant change and firms of all sizes need to rise to the challenges they are facing. ...
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Watchdog calls for regulation of probate services
The Legal Services Consumer Panel calls today for probate and estate administration services to be regulated and made reserved activities along with will-writing. However in a submission to the Legal Services Board, following a call for evidence on will-writing, probate and estate administration services, the ...