All News articles – Page 1467
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Construction
Building contract - Adjudication - Award Witney Town Council v Beam Construction (Cheltenham) Limited: Queen's Bench Division, Technology and Construction Court (Mr Justice Akenhead): 12 September 2011 Having concluded that ...
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Southern comfort
The Economist once described Australia as a country that ‘never makes the front pages of foreign newspapers’. But from the perspective of many UK lawyers, that description no longer rings true. Ashurst’s prospective tie-up with Blake Dawson has shown that City interest in Australia as a hub for Asia-Pacific expansion ...
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Djanogly encourages claims managers to team up with solicitors
Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly is content to see claims management companies (CMCs) forge closer ties with solicitors once the referral fee ban for personal injury cases has been introduced. Speaking at a Commons transport committee meeting on Tuesday on the cost of motor insurance, Djanogly said ...
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Clegg censures lawyers on social mobility
The legal profession needs to open its doors wider to new entrants and do more to encourage social mobility, the deputy prime minister told lawyers this week. Speaking to the Financial Services Lawyers Association, Nick Clegg said: ‘Your profession judges and represents people in court, so ...
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I'll state my case
Paul Dixon, this week’s Lawyer in the News, will soon be treating an audience of Portsmouth pub regulars to his version of the Sinatra classic My Way. Or perhaps he will be getting on down to Mustang Sally or even belting out We Are The Champions. He won’t be alone ...
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Extended opening hours could boost magistracy
Government plans to extend magistrates’ operating hours into evenings and weekends could increase the diversity of the magistracy, but should not be carried out at the expense of daytime sitting, according to the chair of the Magistrates’ Association. John Thornhill told the Gazette that justice minister ...
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Young lawyers will seek 'bespoke incentive plans'
Ambitious young lawyers will increasingly seek ‘bespoke incentive plans’ after as little as three years’ service with a firm, rather than wait decades for rewards under the ‘anachronistic’ partnership system, a City bank claimed this week. In a report on the future of legal services ...
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Removing an arbitrator on grounds of bias
One of the fundamental principles upon which arbitration rests is the entitlement of each party to have a fair hearing by an impartial arbitral tribunal. Indeed, this is a principle upheld by article 6 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights. And this is also ...
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Keep ministers out of legal aid decisions - LSC
The chairman of the Legal Services Commission has warned of the risk of ministers intervening for political reasons in decisions about the granting of legal aid. Speaking at the Legal Aid Practitioners Group conference in Birmingham last week, Sir Bill Callaghan (pictured) expressed concerns that ...
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MoJ faces further challenge over legal aid
The Ministry of Justice faces another legal challenge to its legal aid reforms. The charity Disability Law Service has applied for permission to start judicial review proceedings in relation to the removal of civil legal aid funding for welfare benefits cases. The charity argues the ...
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Play it again Sam
Putting the legal ombudsman and solicitors in the same room is like inviting Theresa May and Ken Clarke to a cat show. But the two factions got on remarkably well at a Law Society event last week – with chief ombudsman Adam Sampson (pictured) even extracting the odd laugh from ...
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Liam Fox finds his inner lawyer
Politicians, especially when in government, find lawyers and the law make good knocking copy. As my colleague John Hyde reported in a blog from the Conservative Party Conference, MP Ben Gummer was more colloquial than most in telling solicitors to ‘get real’ and stop ‘irresponsible’ opposition to government plans on ...
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Lawyers condemn single contract law
Europe neither needs nor can afford the EU-wide single contract law proposed by the European Commission this week, solicitors have warned. Frank Tschentscher, insolvency and re-structuring partner at German firm Schultze & Braun said: ‘Brussels is suggesting bolting on a new 28th law to the 27 ...
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Is partnership still the holy grail?
Partnership in law firms used to be the holy grail that all lawyers aspired to. Years of hard graft and thankless toil led to the reward and status of becoming a partner. That look of respect and admiration at parties in reply to the question ‘what do you do?’ was ...
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Jackson calls for action on contingency legal aid fund
The ‘time is ripe for action’ on creating a Contingency Legal Aid Fund (CLAF), according to Lord Justice Jackson, architect of the government’s reforms of civil litigation costs. ‘There is clearly a strong will among many in the legal profession to make such a scheme work,’ he said. ...
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This is our final OFR
Paul Rogerson talks to SRA chief executive Antony Townsend about the implementation of outcomes-focused regulation in a rapidly changing legal services market.
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Family crisis
The government’s Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill will reach committee stage on the 11th October 2011. Following the consultation on legal aid earlier this year the government received over 5,000 responses in relation to plans to remove legal aid from large areas of the law.
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Two steps forward, one step back
Let us have a party about two pieces of good news. There is not a lot of that around at present, for the legal profession or anyone else. And then we will give a loud boo to the bad news.
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Dublin assures Law Society on Quinn collapse
The Irish government has assured the Law Society that solicitors will not be affected by the transfer of some of the business of Quinn Insurance. More than 500 solicitors have run-off professional indemnity insurance cover with the Irish firm, which went into administration last year. ...