All News articles – Page 1513
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News
City law firms cool on ABSs
City law firms do not generally see alternative business structures as attractive, because they are reluctant to cede control of the firm to source external funding that they do not need. This is one conclusion of the first of a series of studies looking at ...
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Abuse of process
Striking out Action - Claimant bringing claim against defendant for collective enfranchisement Westbrook Dolphin Square Ltd v Friends Provident Life and Pensions Ltd: ChD (Mr Justice Arnold): 14 September 2011 ...
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Abuse of process
Striking out Action - Claimant bringing claim against defendant for collective enfranchisement Westbrook Dolphin Square Ltd v Friends Provident Life and Pensions Ltd: ChD (Mr Justice Arnold): 14 September 2011 ...
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News
Pannone may spin off Affinity
Manchester firm Pannone may spin off its white label legal services arm when alternative business structures are permitted and allow companies using the service to invest and share profits in the business. Pannone launched Affinity Solutions in May, providing a ‘seamless’ consumer law service to non-legal ...
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Fixed fees to be 'renegotiated’ after referral ban
Claimant lawyers’ legal fees under the Road Traffic Accident portal scheme will have to be renegotiated as a result of the forthcoming ban on referral fees, the Ministry of Justice confirmed to the Gazette today. An MoJ spokesman said the fees, which were calculated including an ...
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Leading QC: judicial system discriminates against white men
Many people now perversely believe the judicial and QC appointment systems discriminate against white men, according to a leading silk who is about to become a High Court judge. Interviewed by the Gazette, Rabinder Singh QC stressed that progress has been made over recent years to ...
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Death ‘inevitable’ if legal aid cuts go ahead
It is ‘inevitable’ that someone will die if the government proceeds with planned legal aid funding cuts for cases involving domestic violence, the Law Society has warned. Vice-president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff told a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool that the definition of domestic ...
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Lords may amend legal aid reforms, says top peer
One of the legal profession’s most distinguished peers has offered fresh hope that the House of Lords may yet drive through significant amendments to the legal aid and civil litigation reforms. Liberal Democrat Lord Carlile of Berriew QC believes there is enough support from all sides ...
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The upper house is prepared to contest legal aid reforms. Let us hope the lower house takes heed of its concerns
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Carlile QC has a good record as a defender of legal aid. In his interview with Gazette reporter John Hyde he expresses concern over the implications of the cuts and predicts a difficult ride for the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment ...
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Survey: UK cheapest for international arbitration
The UK is the cheapest and most popular venue for international arbitration, according to an authoritative survey published this week. Some 74% of party costs in international arbitrations are accounted for by external legal costs, and external fees are 26% higher in the rest of Europe, ...
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Lawyers slam ‘chaotic’ asylum unit
The UK’s system for registering asylum claims is chaotic and unworkable and urgently needs a root-and-branch overhaul, lawyers’ groups allege. Problems at the ‘Kafkaesque’ asylum screening unit in Croydon (pictured), the only such unit remaining after a similar unit in Liverpool closed in 2009, have ...
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Equalities and austerity cuts
The journey of Ulysses was classically eventful and hazardous. Local authorities seeking to effect necessary budget cuts can find their journey through the public sector equality duty and its predecessors equally challenging. Many local authorities, such as Birmingham, have fallen by the wayside, even though (as the old 1930s song ...
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SRA consults on referral fees ban
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is to canvass personal injury firms dependent on referral fees to ask how they will cope when the government moves to ban the payments. Richard Collins, SRA director of standards, told a LexisNexis conference on professional regulation that the authority was identifying ...
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Language barriers
Obiter’s stout defence of the language against the depredations of modernity is proving to be cathartic. James Pinder, a partner at DWF in Preston, has fired off his own list of pet hates. ‘Why is a plan or strategem now a "road map"? And why do ...
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Cashflow solution?
I read in the Gazette (news, 8 September, 4) that four high street banks have agreed to help law firms that are experiencing cashflow difficulties resulting from ongoing delays in payment from the Legal Services Commission. As a partner in a niche family law practice in ...
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Encouraging the use of mediation should be a core component of meeting client demand for value for money
by Suzanne Lowe, managing director of Talk Mediation and co-ordinator of the mediation pilot When I was in private practice in 1999, I voiced concern to one of the partners about the future direction of the firm. He asked me to attend one of the partners’ ...
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Straw confident PI referral fees will be criminalised
Jack Straw is confident he will succeed in his high-profile bid to criminalise personal injury referral fees. The former justice secretary believes the government will amend its reforms of civil litigation to incorporate the sanction. The MP for Blackburn said yesterday that Labour’s legalisation of ...
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LeO dealing with lawyers who don't engage
Nearly a year into the life of the Legal Ombudsman and we have seen thousands of cases. These cases are not quite as we thought they would be when we started - nothing in our modelling prepared us for family law overtaking conveyancing as the most complained about area of ...