All News articles – Page 1455
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News
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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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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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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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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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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Avoiding another costs war
The purpose of this article is to avert Costs War II. If the Ministry of Justice takes no notice of it and a costs war ensues, it will not be able to say that it was not warned.
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SRA 'grey areas' an issue for troubled firms
The implementation of the Legal Services Act in October 2011 has brought a significant wave of changes and challenges to the legal profession, which is only just starting to be felt by law firms. Law firms are facing several challenges and opportunities: new regulatory structures ...
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SRA sets back compliance officer deadline
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has postponed the date for firms to nominate compliance officers after another technological delay. The new deadline has not yet been announced. Firms had been expected to put forward two staff members by the end of this month, but with the online ...
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Revving up the blame game
Stirring words from Admiral as the car insurance giant announced its latest financials. Given all the doom and gloom we hear about the insurance industry in the face of a rapacious compensation culture, it was something of a surprise to hear that group profits were up 13% to £299m in ...
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Is it not time for law firms to be bold and mandate change?
‘Personally, I am not a great fan of quotas, but I like the results they bring. We need quotas to break the glass ceiling before returning to normal.’ So said EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding recently, introducing a consultation on whether to bring in quotas for women in company boardrooms.
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Passing the buck
I was consulted by a client who had become completely lost in the claims management process, and even now I am unsure that I have managed to untangle the complex relationships between the various corporate bodies involved.
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Unite joins interpreting campaign
Britain’s biggest trade union this week joined a campaign for the Ministry of Justice to bring courtroom interpreting services back in-house from a contract with Applied Language Solutions (ALS). ‘The courts system is descending into chaos, as suspects are not being informed of their rights and ...
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Concern over new powers to prosecute cartels
Legal specialists have warned that a new anti-competition regime announced by the government today could lower the bar to prosecutions, creating the risk of miscarriages of justice. The reform, proposed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, would merge the Competition Commission and the ...
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We’ll cope, says Salford claims centre chief
Managers at the new county court money claims centre in Salford are confident that it will be able to cope with going fully operational on Monday (19 March) despite a barrage of complaints about its service so far. Manager Jason Latham told the Gazette that ...
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Industrial disease wins exemption from CFA cut
Peers in the House of Lords have voted for sufferers of asbestos-related disease to be exempt from reforms to no win, no fee litigation. The House of Lords yesterday agreed two amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill, allowing claimants continued access ...
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Valuation of general damages in mesothelioma claims
Unless one has been in a life-threatening situation, it is impossible to grasp the concept of imminent mortality. When young, human beings are blinded from seeing the horizon of their lives by the light of expectation.
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My experience as a conveyancing client
Just over two years ago my colleague Rachel Rothwell, now editor of Litigation Funding magazine, wrote a blog with the same title as this one. Rothwell shopped around a bit, asked questions about referral fees, and eventually settled on a licensed conveyancer above a couple of ...
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Libel reform coming, says McNally
Libel reform should not be delayed by the ‘Leveson tsunami’, the justice minister Lord McNally said today, giving a strong hint that a reform bill would feature in the government’s next legislative programme. ‘I would be immensely disappointed if it wasn’t in the Queen’s speech,’ McNally told a conference organised ...
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Conflict of laws
Jurisdiction - Challenge to jurisdiction - Civil and commercial matters Merchant International Co Ltd v Natsionalna Aktsionerna Kompaniia 'Naftogaz Ukrayiny': Court of Appeal, Civil Division (Lord Neuberger MR, Lord Justices Hooper and Toulson): 29 February 2012 ...
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The training contract: which way forward?
In a rapidly changing legal services market, just how fit for purpose is the training contract in ensuring access to the profession is open and diverse and in preparing the next generation of lawyers? The profession-wide Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) is asking tough questions about how and when ...