All News articles – Page 1466
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News
What you can’t see will hurt you
Here’s the problem, there’s a nagging uncertainty about ‘high street’ solicitors' firms. There is a lot going on but you haven’t quite seen a specific challenge or threat to your firm. Whatever the threats are, you can’t quite clarify the problem in terms of how you run your firm because ...
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Junior staff forced upon 'life and death' care cases
The soaring number of court applications to take children into care is forcing cash-strapped law firms to use junior and unqualified staff to handle ‘life and death’ cases.
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Survey: in-house woe for magic circle
Pressure on corporate legal budgets eased in 2011, but that failed to halt a three-year decline in the use of magic circle firms. Legal departments instead chose to increase their own headcount, and to make greater use of UK mid-tier law firms, other international firms, the bar and niche firms.
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Coming clean
James Morton’s anecdotes on the evergreen topic of court dress code have provoked a few recollections of judicial observations.
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Law firms ‘are their own competitors’
Law firms lose almost half of potential new clients by mishandling telephone enquiries and most show ‘zero’ sensitivity to a client’s needs, a ‘secret-shopping’ exercise has found. Some 33% of calls to firms were disconnected before they reached a legal adviser and 44% of those which ...
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Personal injury lawyers meet on Jackson compromise
The executive committee of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers meets today amid member discontent over its proposals for a compromise deal on the Jackson reforms. Last week APIL set out a ‘Plan B’ to offer the government, as the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of ...
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County Court reforms could cripple system
by Francesca Kaye, vice-president of the London Solicitors Litigation Association The ministerial foreword to the government’s response to the consultation Solving Disputes in the County Courts states: ‘An effective justice system is the cornerstone of a civilised society… upon which ordinary members of the public rely ...
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Courting disorder
I read with some amusement the article regarding complaints about Salford. Obviously those on high have been thinking for some time about the future of court work in this country. We have been steered away from the courts via the urging of the parties to mediate. ...
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Where credit is due
While the online renewals process for practising certificates was confusing and highly stressful for many of us, the SRA deserves credit for the way in which some of its staff handled individual complaints and concerns.
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Setting the date
The announcement by the Sentencing Council on 24 January of a reduction of sentences for those who are drug mules, and not organisers, is long overdue but greatly to be welcomed. The new guideline applies to all offenders aged 18 and over who are sentenced on or after 27 February ...
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Solicitors enter Dragon’s Den
Gimlet-eyed multi-millionaires look on sceptically as you launch into your business pitch. Pulse tripping, you contemplate the excruciating embarrassment of freezing before the cameras and unseen millions gawping at their TV screens. Or maybe you manage to limp through to the end of your presentation only to hear your ambitions ...
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Download limit
The letter from the grandly titled ‘Programme Director, CJS Efficiency Programme’ at the CPS poses more questions than it answers. Downloading every case in a court building on to the computer of each prosecutor at a court building on a particular day places those prosecutors under ...
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Violent employees and vicarious liability
In recent times a disproportionate number of cases concerning vicarious liability have reached the higher courts. Sadly, a number of these have involved abuse of children by members of the clergy. Violence is a common feature, though financial wrongdoing was the offence in Dubai Aluminium Company Ltd v Salaam [2003] ...
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Where lords fear to tread
The House of Lords debate on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill has featured a procession of eminent lawyers honing their advocacy skills. All of which has made it a formidable place for those without a legal background. Some noble lords have been ...
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Tuckers offers services to rival firms
Criminal law firm Tuckers is to make its billing, diary management and other back-office operations available to rival firms in an innovative partnering initiative that it hopes will cut operating costs and save lawyers’ jobs.
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On top form
I am just recovering from my first attempt at completing the criminal legal aid application forms CDS 14 and 15 on behalf of my client. That these convoluted affairs come with a 22-page guide to their completion, to extract virtually the same information as their predecessors, says it all.
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Immigration
Leave to enter - Indefinite leave - Spouses, children and other dependant relatives - Appellants being refused leave to enter UK UG (Nepal) v Entry Clearance Officer; NT (Nepal) and another v Entry Clearance Officer; YP (Nepal) v Entry ...
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Judicial review
Crown Prosecution Service - Decision to prosecute - Judicial review of decision - Claimant being harassed by F - Restraining order being issued against F R (on the application of Waxman) v Crown Prosecution Service: QBD (Admin) (Lord Justice ...