All News articles – Page 1457
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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’ ...
-
News
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, ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
Federal court strikes down attempt to overturn ownership rule
A New York personal injury firm has failed in its attempt to overrule the state’s ban on non-lawyer ownership.
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
Survey shows top 100 fee income up by 7.2%
Firms just outside the top 25 are prospering more than anyone as fee income continues to rise across the upper echelons of the legal market. The latest quarterly survey by Deloitte of the legal service market - covering the third quarter of 2011/12 - found strongest ...
-
News
Concern at move to make success fee recovery ban retrospective
Alarm has been raised at a move by the government that appears to give the Jackson reforms retrospective effect. Radical changes to the no win, no fee system are due to come into force in April 2013 as part of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment ...
-
News
Can the Fiji government’s sensitivities be exploited?
When it comes to the topic of their legality, dictators are a surprisingly needy bunch, and Fiji’s current rulers are no exception. Following the Gazette’s report on the rule of law (or lack thereof) in Fiji , its attorney general, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, and director of public prosecutions, New Zealander Christopher ...
-
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 ...
-
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
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
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
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
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 ...