All News articles – Page 1415
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News
Red alert
The next phase of the government’s red tape challenge, in the first three weeks of June, is legal services. This will involve a review of the Legal Services Act for superfluous regulations, with particular focus on claims management, sentencing and bailiffs. Encouragingly, and despite the ...
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Deferred prosecution could come to UK, says Alderman
Legislation to enable US-style deferred prosecutions for corporate crime may feature in the Queen’s speech on 9 May. Richard Alderman (pictured), outgoing director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), said last week that deferred prosecution - under which the authorities and a business agree a ...
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PM's adoption reform prompts warning
Lawyers have welcomed the prime minister’s proposal for legislation to speed up the adoption process, but warned that changes could lead to increased legal challenges. An action plan due to be launched yesterday will require local authorities to find adoptive parents within three months, or to place children on the ...
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Act now to avoid a budget-day headache
Speculation has been rife in recent weeks that tax relief on pension contributions could take a hit in the budget next week. Partners urgently need to consider that it could be a quid pro quo for a reduction in the 50% rate - and ...
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Accreditation can help firms meet fresh challenges
by Joe Gibson, a practice manager at Beeley & Co in Stockport There are about 11,000 firms of solicitors in England and Wales and 1,082 legal practices have the Lexcel accreditation. So why is it that so many firms have either not achieved the Lexcel accreditation ...
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Accident waiting to happen
Your feature on work experience made interesting reading. Until a few years ago, I always used to take school students (usually fourth or fifth year) for a week or two. They used to come to court with me and sit in with clients (with clients’ consent ...
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More time for LDPs to mull ABS options
Hundreds of legal disciplinary practices (LDPs) have been given more time to decide how to approach the new era of legal services regulation. Under the terms of the 2007 Legal Services Act, some 250 LDPs in England and Wales with non-lawyer managers must decide whether ...
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Deech confident about QASA roll-out
The controversial accreditation scheme for advocates has the support of judges and will go ahead, the chair of the Bar Standards Board has said amid a continuing dispute with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
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Banks face £1bn blizzard of funded suits
Venture capital firms are backing litigation worth up to £1bn against major banks over the alleged misselling of interest rate hedging contracts, the Gazette can reveal. A group of cases identified by the company that has secured the backing of funds for the claims, Norton ...
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Should surplus lawyers sue?
In New York suits have been filed against 14 law schools on behalf of alumni who have been unable to start the legal career they had set their hearts on. It would be easy to sneer at what looks, from a certain angle, like the plaintiffs’ ...
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Rights commission in disarray following factional splits
Chaos reigns among the members of the commission set up by the prime minister to draft a replacement for the Human Rights Act (HRA), leaked emails and a resignation suggest. According to documents leaked to the press, one Tory member of the commission has accused the ...
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Message to Cameron: there is no compensation culture
Dear Mr Cameron, I am writing to you as my MP but also, more importantly, as my prime minister. I voted in the Conservatives because I felt that Labour had not done what they promised. I now find myself furious and pretty ...
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MPs’ caseloads will bear the brunt of legal aid cuts
MPs will face a ‘rising tide of need’ from constituents with unmet legal needs if the government’s legal aid cuts are implemented, according to a report published today by the Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) group. The study warns that increasing numbers of people are turning ...
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Law Society slams barristers’ public access plan
Proposals to allow barristers with less than three years' experience to accept work directly from the public without supervision are ‘an abdication of regulatory risk,’ according to the Law Society. Responding to a Bar Standards Board (BSB) consultation on relaxing the public access rules, Chancery Lane called for ‘clear and ...
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How long can the USA hold off ABSs?
With David Cameron and Barack Obama currently cementing their special relationship, the focus is very much on the links that bind the UK and US.
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CFA reform will not be retrospective, MoJ says
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) today sought to quell fears that Jackson reforms would be applied retrospectively to cases launched before April 2013. Changes to civil litigation are set to be implemented next year once the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill has been ...
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Government blocks bid for immigration and debt amendments to LASPO
Opponents of the government’s legal aid reforms suffered defeats in two votes last night as peers continued to debate the controversial Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) bill. In the third sitting of the bill’s report stage, the government defeated amendments that would have ...
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CPS monitor warns of advocacy gap
The Crown Prosecution Service has saved £26m over the past five years by increasing its use of in-house advocates - but done little to improve those advocates’ quality, the CPS inspectorate reports today. In a follow up to its 2009 report on the CPS’s advocacy strategy, ...
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Subsidiarity and Gypsies
They are called didicoys or pikeys in Kent and they are the subject of an admonishing letter sent to the UK government by the Strasbourg court, which is again venturing into a part of the British psyche where even angels fear to tread. First the European ...
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Women in boardrooms: have the zombies won?
European Union justice commissioner Viviane Reding recently surprised herself, and the world, too. She walked up to the microphone, after having rehearsed all morning before her bathroom mirror an announcement to bring in quotas for women in company boardrooms. She had threatened as much a year ago, when she said ...