All News articles – Page 1443
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News
Rights conference set to end in ‘fudge’
This week’s Brighton conference on the future of Europe’s human rights court will end in a meaningless ‘fudge’, with no serious debate to address the issues dividing the governments of the 47 European states attending, one of Britain’s leading political scientists has predicted. Dr Michael ...
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Is it different this time?
Two things have occurred that need your attention. The first alternative business structure (ABS) firms have been announced and QualitySolicitors’ new TV promotional campaign has started. I’m sure there will be a fierce debate about the pros and cons of QS' approach to promoting legal services; however given the Co-operative ...
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Money laundering again... and again
In the calm of the Easter break, the European commission has published an important report on anti-money laundering, which could eventually have a significant impact on solicitors’ duties. (When reviewing the topics I have written about in these blogs over nearly three years, money laundering is probably the most frequently ...
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Ministers target child legal aid in fightback against bill amendments
The government says it will oppose all but three of the 11 amendments made by peers to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill when the measure returns to the Commons tomorrow. A government response to the Lords’ amendments, published on Friday afternoon, signals ...
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Consumer panel to probe financial protection arrangements
The ability of regulators’ financial protection arrangements to cope with the high level of firms in distress is to come under the scrutiny of the consumer legal watchdog. In its work programme for 2012-13, published today, the Legal Services Consumer Panel says the capacity of ...
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Harmonised standards the key to family mediation, says Djanogly
Improved regulation and harmonised professional standards would encourage the take up of family mediation, the justice minister said today. Jonathan Djanogly told a Law Society conference on family mediation that the government will work with family mediation services, through the Family Mediation Council (FMC) to achieve a ‘harmonised’ scheme of ...
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News
Day in court
The day after press day on a weekly newspaper is a good one for editors to get out to see a bit of the real world. I spent last Thursday in Court 1, Southwark Crown court, watching the opening stages of what everyone expects to be a lengthy trial concerning ...
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The right address
I was interested by Ian Kinloch’s letter in which he refers to a German solicitor being addressed as Herr Doktor. I hold the Institute of Linguists diploma in French and liaised with a monolingual French notaire on behalf of a client buying a holiday home in the Dordogne. Leaving aside ...
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News
Advise courts of uncooperative clients, solicitors told
Criminal solicitors should tell the court when clients fail to co-operate with them, to avoid the risk of breaching their duty to the court, the Law Society has advised. Chancery Lane has issued an updated practice note setting out the duties and burdens affecting solicitors arising ...
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Retain legal aid bill amendments, MPs urged
Opponents of the government’s legal aid reforms have united to lobby MPs to retain amendments made by peers when the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill returns to the Commons next week. The Law Society and Bar Council, together with bodies representing charities ...
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Tracking scheme aims to cut family delays
A new initiative to tackle delays in the family courts has got under way. The pilot scheme to track all public law cases issued from 2 April 2012 follows the launch of a case management system monitoring the progress of cases, recording all case management decisions, adjournments, the use of ...
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Asbestos victims hit by legislation delay
The government has admitted that a 2010 act designed to help people gain compensation for industrial diseases is unlikely to be implemented until 2013. The Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act was pushed through two years ago to update legislation dating from 1930. It gave claimants, ...
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News
Sleeping beauties
Reading the report of the magistrate who was alleged to have gone to sleep during a mitigation reminds me of the late Wilfrid Fordham. He used to say: ‘A speech in mitigation gets no better the longer it goes on’. In his later years, Wilfrid was a great one for ...
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Serve deaf clients better 'or face claims'
Law firms could face unlimited discrimination claims from deaf and hard of hearing people if they continue failing to make ‘reasonable adjustments’, consumer watchdogs have warned.
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Lawyer foot soldiers of the Big Society need a state-maintained road to march on
This week chancellor George Osborne received a bloody nose from charities which estimate their finances will be hard hit by his decision to place a cap on tax relief for charitable donations. His move may or may not be right in principle. But as with ...
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Law firm is business loan pioneer
An East Anglian high street firm is one of the first businesses in the country to secure a loan through a new government-backed financing scheme. Tees Solicitors, which has six offices across four counties, has obtained £2m from Barclays under the National Loan Guarantee Scheme announced ...
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Hundreds of CMCs ‘cancelled’ by MoJ
The Ministry of Justice has closed down about one in five claims management companies in the past year, according to figures obtained by the Gazette. A freedom of information request to the MoJ’s Claims Management Regulation department has revealed that 734 businesses were ‘cancelled’ in ...
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Grieve: interpreter failure ‘not contempt’
The attorney general has declined a request to launch an action for contempt against a contractor accused of failing to supply court interpreters - but said that wasted costs orders could apply to such cases.