All News articles – Page 1417
-
News
Opening doors
In 2010 I attended the Commonwealth Lawyers Association’s regional conference at Abuja, Nigeria and was introduced to the concept of a multi-door court. It seems to me that now the Ministry of Justice has a number of empty courts, the time is right to explore the multi-door concept and possibly ...
-
News
Educate, don’t mandate: Jackson on mediation
Lord Justice Jackson has called for a ‘serious campaign’ to teach lawyers and judges the benefits of mediation to settle disputes. The architect of the civil litigation reforms told a conference today that he is still a keen advocate of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as a ...
-
News
LASPO suffers three more defeats in Lords
The government lost three more votes on its planned legal aid reforms in the House of Lords yesterday, but narrowly staved off an amendment that would have kept public funding for all clinical negligence cases. In the second day of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment ...
-
News
Thousands miss PC renewal deadline
Thousands of solicitors appear to have failed to apply in time for practising certificates this year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has confirmed. The deadline for applications, extended because of difficulties with the mySRA online application system, passed last Friday.
-
News
Reform could curtail Strasbourg
The government has high hopes of reaching an agreement in Brighton next month that will lead to major reforms to the European Convention on Human Rights and the court in Strasbourg that enforces it. Britain’s proposals are set out in a draft declaration which the government hopes will be approved ...
-
News
Flexible working 'crucial for women lawyers'
Almost all women lawyers believe that flexible working practices are key to women winning senior roles in law firms, an international survey suggests. Some 85% of respondents to the survey, commissioned by LexisNexis and the Law Society, said that the level of commitment required to reach ...
-
News
Counting the costs
While not a member of the Law Society, I read the Gazette with great interest, particularly in relation to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill and the extension of the RTA scheme to include employers’ and public liability claims.
-
News
Court upholds wasted costs order
The Court of Appeal has upheld a wasted costs order against a Buckinghamshire firm, ruling that it was ‘complicit’ in its client’s ‘manipulation’ of the court process by failing to give reasons for opposing a hearsay notice in a criminal trial.
-
News
Solicitors need to wise up to contingency fees
One of the big uncertainties of the Jackson reforms is how big damages-based agreements (‘DBAs’, or contingency fees as they are more commonly known) are going to be. For the first time outside of employment cases, from April 2013 lawyers will be able to take ...
-
News
Clarke defends secret trials
Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke has defended plans to extend secret trials across a range of proceedings in the civil courts, arguing that a ‘unique and unprecedented’ terrorist threat means that evidence affecting national security can be safely disclosed only behind closed doors. A measure in the ...
-
News
Salford claims centre plagued by complaints
Complaints continue to pour in about the new centralised facility for handling civil claims, with under two weeks to go before the centre is set to become fully operational. A solicitor told the Gazette he was still ‘reeling from the nightmare’ of dealing with the County ...
-
News
Quality test 'should not protect barristers'
Controversy about the use of judicial evaluation in a new scheme to assess the quality of advocates has escalated, with solicitors’ bodies warning that the scheme could become a means to protect barristers.
-
News
Fiji hits back at scathing report
Fiji’s attorney general has launched a personal attack on the author of a report which claimed to expose a serious deterioration in the rule of law in the country. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum (pictured), the second most powerful member of Fiji’s government, described the report as a ‘joke’ ...
-
News
Non-disclosure of assets in divorce proceedings
Is the non-disclosure of assets a common problem within divorce proceedings or not? Is it simply the case that suspicious spouses expect the worst of their soon-to-be former partner? Is it just the case that family lawyers are a cynical bunch? The 2011 Grant Thornton matrimonial ...
-
News
ALS offers cash to beat interpreting boycott
The company running the controversial new courtroom interpreting service is offering cash incentives to interpreters who recruit friends, the Gazette has learned, as it emerged than nine out of 10 court interpreters are boycotting the service.
-
News
The public element of the legal economy is already ‘running hot’
Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke opined this week that he did not know ‘why’ legal aid was so expensive. Considering ‘if’ it is expensive would be a more pertinent point. By most measures in a western economy the healthy balance between private and public is about ...
-
News
Ticking all the right boxes
If the local plod happened to ask about your attitude to law-breaking, you would probably not confess to a list of crimes before knocking the bobby’s helmet off and doing a runner.
-
News
‘Vigorously’ defend cases after reforms, Djanogly tells insurers
Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly has told insurers he expects them to ‘vigorously defend’ cases after civil litigation reforms are enacted. Djanogly told an insurance industry conference last week that civil justice reforms will provide a more level playing field between claimants and defendants. ...
-
News
Liverpool Victoria wins bogus accident case
A leading insurer has secured the first known successful prosecution of a claimant who completely fabricated a car accident. Liverpool Victoria, which uses the trademark LV=, brought contempt proceedings against individuals who had reported a crash in Birmingham in 2008 and failed to attend court ...