All News articles – Page 1536
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News
200th firm signs diversity and inclusion charter
Carmarthen firm Ungoed-Thomas & King has become the 200th firm to sign up to the Law Society’s Diversity and Inclusion Charter. One third of private practice solicitors now work in firms that have signed up to the flagship diversity initiative that was launched last year. ...
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ACS:Law denies involvement in ‘scam’ in Greece
A London solicitor has denied involvement in an email ‘scam’ attempting to get money out of people in Greece by accusing them of illegal filesharing. Emails purporting to be from ACS:Law in London were sent to people in Greece accusing them of illegal filesharing, and seeking ...
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Beachcroft and Davies Arnold Cooper confirm merger
Two of the UK’s leading insurance firms, Beachcroft and Davies Arnold Cooper, today confirmed that they will merge. DAC Beachcroft will have a combined turnover of £175m and will employ more than 2,000 staff in offices across the world. The firms said ...
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Human rights lawyers claim ‘historic’ victory
Human rights lawyers claimed a ‘historic’ victory this month in two landmark rulings in the European Court of Human Rights against the Ministry of Defence. The Strasbourg judges ruled earlier this month that when UK forces are exercising public powers overseas, such as assuming responsibility for ...
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Solicitors do not deserve public humiliation
I received a poor service from my local library the other day. The woman in there was a bit abrupt and sent me to the wrong section as I searched for something to hold up on the Tube to prove how intellectual I was. I declined ...
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SRA to investigate solicitors’ potential role in phone-hacking events
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has today launched a formal investigation into the role played by solicitors in events surrounding the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. The SRA's chief executive Antony Townsend said the decision followed a preliminary review of the material in the public domain. ...
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PII special: what law firms need to know to negotiate the 2011 renewal round
The decision to phase out the assigned risks pool (ARP) during the 2011 and 2012 renewals, leading to its abolition in 2013, has added significant anxiety to the already tumultuous market for professional indemnity insurance (PII). This transitional period will see the introduction of joint liability ...
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Anger over £600m in unpaid court fines
The government was accused of ‘economic illiteracy’ this week, as it emerged that the amount owed in outstanding court fines has risen to more than £600m in the past year, while the number of enforcement officers employed to collect them was slashed by 12%. Solicitors expressed ...
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Auditors warn MoJ about legal aid reforms
The National Audit Office (pictured) warned the government that its legal aid reforms would threaten the sustainability of law firms before the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill was published. The news comes after the Gazette reported last week that the Legal Services Commission ...
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ABSs at risk of criminal ownership, Law Society warns
The Law Society is pressing the Ministry of Justice to make an urgent amendment to the Legal Services Act to prevent non-lawyers with spent criminal convictions from becoming owners of alternative business structures. Society chief executive Desmond Hudson has written to justice secretary Kenneth Clarke urging ...
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Defamation lawyer: abuse victims need CFAs
A leading defamation lawyer has called for conditional fee agreements to be preserved to help victims of press abuse. Steven Heffer, chair of the Lawyers for Media Standards group, said individuals must be given the means to fight legal battles against media outlets that have acted ...
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Sharon Shoesmith case: accountability and fairness
Power politics can be brutal to those perceived as prejudicial. A former Archbishop of Canterbury found this out to his cost. For in December 1170, Thomas Becket was murdered at Canterbury Cathedral in apparent compliance with the wishes of King Henry II, with whom he had had a series of ...
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Ace of race
City lawyers were out in force at last week’s Standard Chartered Great City Race. The first man across the line was Chris Busaileh (pictured), trainee at Speechly Bircham, while Reed Smith’s Karen Ellison and Lawrence Graham’s Gemma Jones claimed seventh and eighth in the female rankings. ...
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Advice for firms that find it harder to get PII cover at the right price
Market conditions have produced something of a ‘perfect storm’ around the October professional indemnity insurance (PII) renewals this year.
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LSC transfers cases from collapsed immigration advice provider
The Legal Services Commission has announced that it has begun transferring urgent files from the collapsed Immigration Advisory Service to other providers. Following a call for existing immigration contract holders to submit expressions of interest to take on IAS cases, current providers indicated they had the ...
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The English were mute at the international legal aid conference
Every couple of years, legal aid administrators from around the world meet with concerned academics. In June, they gathered in Helsinki.
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Why the SRA replaced the assigned risks pool
Protecting consumers by ensuring effective professional indemnity and compensation fund arrangements is a key objective for the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Currently, financial protection is achieved through a combination of two arrangements: compulsory professional indemnity insurance (PII) and the compensation fund.
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Local authority
NHS - Nursing care - Authority seeking to amend care package R (on the application of McDonald) v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Supreme Court (Lords Walker, Brown, Kerr, Lady Hale, Lord Dyson SJJ): 6 July 2011 ...
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The Localism Bill divides opinion
At a time when many lawyers are grappling with the implications of the new Bribery Act, the Localism Bill’s passage through parliament has received relatively little attention. This despite the array of legislative changes that are contained within its three slim volumes.
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Domestic violence rules 'boost cost of disputes'
Family lawyers have attacked the government’s plans to deny legal aid to domestic violence victims who accept ‘undertakings’ from an allegedly abusive partner. Responding to a query on the issue from the House of Commons’ Justice Committee, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that undertakings given during ...