All News articles – Page 1488
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News
LeO goes to court to enforce decisions against law firms
The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) has resorted to court action for the first time to enforce a decision against a firm of solicitors. Only after the action was launched did the firm pay out £2,650 in compensation to a client, as the ombudsman had ordered, plus interest. ...
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Halliwells’ administration - nice work if you can get it
When I grow up I want to be an insolvency practitioner. That was my rather facetious thought upon reading BDO’s latest administrators’ report on the collapse of Halliwells. Nothing to do with the defunct firm’s travails as such – though since RBS is down over £15m it looks like taxpayers ...
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Society sends letter of claim to Solicitors from Hell owner
The Law Society sent a letter of claim to the owner of the Solicitors from Hell website last week, as it prepared to launch a class action against him on behalf of the profession. The letter demands that website owner Rick Kordowski must close the site, ...
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Advocacy assurance scheme is ‘bar-centric’, solicitor claims
A significant number of solicitor advocates will not qualify for higher rights advocacy under a proposed ‘bar-centric’ Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA), the chair of the Solicitors Association of Higher Court Advocates (SAHCA) has claimed. SAHCA chairman Jo Cooper said that advocacy regulator the Joint ...
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Lawyers see rise in insolvency and employment work
Law firms have seen a surge in insolvency-related work and employment advice, as tough economic conditions continue to affect clients. Figures from law firm referral service Contact Law showed a significant rise in calls from members of the public and businesses relating to employment and insolvency. ...
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Halliwells partners appoint Irwin Mitchell to fight claims
Fourteen former partners at collapsed law firm Halliwells have appointed national firm Irwin Mitchell to represent them as they fight claims brought by the firm’s administrator. The group comprises individuals who did not transfer to one of the four firms that acquired parts of Halliwells’ business ...
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Is the Legal Services Board expecting a slow start to ABSs?
The Legal Services Board published a research paper last week outlining its ‘latest thinking’ on the impact of alternative business structures. The paper seems to be preparing the ground for a slow start, with bigger developments later on. It predicts that the ...
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Growing problem of child abduction
Almost every other day a child is abducted from England and Wales to a country where they are unprotected by international conventions to ensure their return home. Recently published statistics from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) state that the last 12 months saw a 10% increase from the previous ...
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News from ABA’s annual meeting in Toronto
I attended the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in Toronto last week. The global economy looked as if it was about to crash, but it was too late to incorporate that into the programme. The organisers did manage to include the previous US crisis into the opening ceremony, since the ...
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Solicitors report ‘chaotic scenes’ as rioters processed through court
Defence solicitors and prosecutors have reported scenes of chaos as they worked day and night to represent or prosecute more than 1,000 alleged rioters and looters arrested so far this week. Magistrates’ courts in London and other cities across England have been sitting 24 hours a ...
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Society to set up pro bono riot helpline for victims
The Law Society is to launch a telephone helpline next week which will direct small independent shopkeepers and other victims of the recent riots to pro bono legal advice. The Society will be working in collaboration with participating law firms and pro bono legal advice charity ...
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Marsh launches PII service targeted at small firms
Insurance broker Marsh has launched a new service targeted at providing professional indemnity insurance (PII) for smaller firms. Marsh said its service would offer two to three-partner firms exclusive access to Liberty Mutual Insurance Europe, while four to 10-partner firms would have exclusive access to XL ...
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News
Society welcomes amendment to Localism Bill
The government has amended the Localism Bill, following Law Society warnings that a certain provision could have caused uncertainty in the property market. The provision proposed strengthening local authorities’ powers to tackle abuses of the planning system where there had been a breach of planning control ...
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Law firms setting up stall
The profession seems to keep dreaming up ideas to make its own life a bit more difficult. This week I had to go to a Midlands town and arrived at a shopping precinct next to the station. There were two stalls in the middle of the mall offering legal advice. ...
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Chartis will not offer new PII business
Insurer Chartis has said that it will not take on any new business in the solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance (PII) market due to the high costs of the Assigned Risks Pool. The insurer said it will concentrate on renewals within its existing book instead. ...
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News
Tottenham law firm damaged by fire
The Tottenham offices of London firm EBR Attridge have been damaged by fire during last weekend’s riots. In a statement issued through the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the firm said that despite suffering smoke damage, most files remain intact and are being ‘reassembled’. ...
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Lancashire firm targets deaf clients as staff learn sign language
A Lancashire law firm is set to become the first practice in the country dedicated to providing legal services to the deaf and hard of hearing. Joseph Frasier in Blackburn will next week launch a campaign – Representing Your Right to Be Heard – to help ...
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Cardiff Law School launches GDL conversion course
Cardiff Law School is to add the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) conversion course to its portfolio of legal training courses from September 2012. The law school said that that the GDL scheme, which enables non-law graduates to train for a career in law, has become ...
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Targeting a section of the client base is the way forward
It was heartening today to learn of the strategy adopted by Lancashire firm Joseph Frasier, which is setting out to become the first practice specially dedicated to deaf and hard-of-hearing clients. The move to target a particular niche area of the market is precisely what consultants ...
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OPG calls for more use of non-lawyers to avoid ‘costly legal solutions’
The Office of the Public Guardian is seeking to encourage the use of non-lawyers to act as deputies for those with impaired capacity, so they can avoid ‘costly legal solutions’. In a call for evidence published last week, the OPG is seeking the views of care ...