All News articles – Page 1508
-
News
Wales ponders Welsh law
The Welsh government is to start a public debate on separate legal jurisdiction for the principality. A green paper will be launched early in 2012, first minister Carwyn Jones told last week’s Legal Wales conference in Cardiff. In March, the people of Wales voted to ...
-
News
Litigants in person numbers soar
The dire state of the economy has already led to a dramatic increase in the number of litigants in person, new figures from a voluntary organisation suggest. This is before government cuts to civil legal aid come into effect, which many solicitors predict will trigger another huge rise.
-
News
A local solution to mediation
I write in connection with the Comment piece, ‘See the value of mediation'. Some years ago, Devon and Exeter Law Society, as it then was, ran an extremely successful small claims mediation scheme attached to the Exeter group of courts. Our society also trained and ...
-
News
Selective memory
The Ministry of Justice seems to be suffering from amnesia in relation to the road traffic accident portal negotiations (see ‘Change to RTA portal legal fees’. The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers was closely involved in the negotiations and we can confirm that the issue of ...
-
News
A purrfect stretch
Obiter is as fond as the next person of a bit of word play, but from the point where there was ‘fur flying’ in the fight between the home and justice secretaries over the cat that had human rights (or not), it was ...
-
News
Sentencing
Imprisonment - Length of sentence R v H: Court of Appeal, Criminal Division (Lord Justice Elias, Mr Justice Maddison, Mr Justice Burnett): 27 September 2011 The Court of Appeal, ...
-
News
Sentencing
Custodial sentence - Dangerous offenders - Robbery R v McKenzie: Court of Appeal, Criminal Division (Lord Justice Richards, Mr Justice Calvert-Smith, Mr Justice Underhill): 29 September 2011 The Court of ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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. ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
Firms call off Anglo-Scottish merger
An Anglo-Scottish merger between firms Bircham Dyson Bell and Dundas & Wilson has been ruled out. In a joint statement today, the firms said exploratory discussions to create a practice with combined revenues of £100m had not been successful. Donald Shaw, ...
-
News
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. ...
-
News
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.
-
News
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.
-
News
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.
-
News
Advocacy assurance scheme put on hold for a month
The launch of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) has been delayed and the consultation on its design extended, the Joint Advocacy Group (JAG) announced today. The JAG, set up with representatives of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Bar Standards Board and ILEX Professional Services ...