All News articles – Page 1574
-
News
Whitehall proposals ignore people who could fill civil legal aid void
The most common reaction to last week’s Ministry of Justice green paper on legal aid is shock. That shock is manifested among legal aid practitioners, clients and the groups that speak for clients.
-
News
Unite and fight legal aid cuts – Kennedy
Baroness Helena Kennedy has called on the legal profession to pull together to fight against proposed legal aid cuts that will ‘leave a real lacuna for those most in need’ and increase the risk of miscarriages of justice. Her plea came as the Law Society launched ...
-
News
Rule of law in the age of austerity
Toby Brown writes about the Access to Justice campaign concerning awareness of the recoverability of pro bono costs. This is a major advance in support of pro bono litigation. However, he failed to mention the biggest impediment to the initiation of much pro bono litigation, which is the threat of ...
-
News
Law Society to fund panel action
The Law Society has agreed to fund an opinion from counsel on whether a Hertfordshire firm can sue Santander and Lloyds Banking Group after being removed from their conveyancing panels. Paul Judkins, a partner at Judkins, said more than 50 firms had contacted him to express ...
-
News
Trial judges should put questions to jurors, says Lord Justice Moses
Judges should present a list of questions to jurors in criminal trials to guide them in reaching a verdict, a senior judge suggested yesterday. Lord Justice Moses said the move, which was recommended in Lord Justice Auld’s 2001 review of the criminal courts, would reduce the ...
-
News
Rapid population growth will fuel demand for legal services
Emerging global economies will fuel a massive demand for legal services by 2030 and provide opportunities for UK law firms, according the Law Society. The Society said firms must respond to that increased demand, or miss out on vital opportunities. It said ...
-
News
Discrimination claims carry extra risks in law firms
Discrimination claims can be as devastating for employers as they are for employees. They divert attention from core business priorities, disturb working relationships and cost a great deal. All employers share this joy but for a solicitors’ practice there is the further jeopardy created by the regulatory regime of the ...
-
News
Counting the cost of the Big Society
'Big Society is a great idea, but it doesn't come for free,' says Citizen Advice Bureau manager Pi Townsend. The funding squeeze could mean a stark choice, she tells me, between paying utility bills at the CAB's three premises in Tunbridge Wells, or paring services to the bone at a ...
-
News
Herbert Smith to open document centre in Belfast
City firm Herbert Smith has announced it is to open an office in Belfast next year. The new branch will focus on reviewing and analysing the large volumes of documents found in major contentious work, notably in litigation, arbitration and regulatory investigations. ...
-
News
The EU may have something to say about any coalition attempts to cut legal aid
Viviane Reding is a tough cookie. Now EU commissioner for justice, freedom and security, she previously saw off the mobile phone companies and reduced their charges. France is smarting under the lash of her comparison of its Roma policy with that of Hitler’s Germany. And now she threatens to get ...
-
News
End of the public-private world
A few years ago, BBC journalist Mark Easton gave a talk to clients at DLA Piper’s London office. His title at the time was ‘home editor’ – a title with a breadth he liked. His basic theme was the informed ‘bet’ he had made that, in the future, the private ...
-
News
Forensic expert witnesses should be accredited, warns judge
A lack of accreditation of expert witnesses means that anyone with a scientific background and sufficient ‘brass neck’ could set themselves up as a forensic science expert and mislead the court, a Court of Appeal judge has warned. Lord Justice Leveson told the Forensic Science Society ...
-
News
Scrap training contract, says thinktank
A legal thinktank has today called for the abolition of the training contract as part of proposed radical changes to legal education and training. A 53-page discussion paper from the College of Law’s Legal Services Institute (LSI) urges scrapping training contracts and making the Legal Practice ...
-
News
Justice minister calls for greater steer towards mediation
Individuals should play a greater role in solving their problems rather than turning to the courts, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly said last week as he set out the government’s plan to support mediation in the wake of its proposals to slash legal aid. Speaking at CEDR’s ...
-
News
A timely guide to EU actions on the financial crisis
I have chosen the ideal time to write about the new regime being established by the EU to ensure that there is not another financial crisis – now when the structure of the eurozone is tottering as a result of the crisis, and the future of the euro and of ...
-
News
Fixed fees shouldn’t kill time recording
If you are making strategic decisions do you have sufficient financial information to make those decisions? It seems that calculating the expense of time may have gone out of fashion. Some may never have calculated it. But how do you know if a transaction is profitable? And how, if you ...
-
News
‘Compensation culture’ peer quits over gaffe
Lord Young of Graffham will not now assist the government with the implementation of his report on the ‘compensation culture’ after quitting his advisory role this afternoon, Downing Street has confirmed to the Gazette. The government backed the Tory peer’s report, Common Sense, Common Safety, and ...
-
News
Society launches campaign to fight legal aid cuts
The Law Society has called on law firms to lobby MPs over the impact of the government’s proposed legal aid overhaul, in the first stage in its campaign to fight the cuts. Chancery Lane has warned that the plans outlined in last week’s consultation to reduce ...
-
News
Quality street
It was with great fanfare that national law firm ‘superbrand’ Quality Solicitors launched its first ‘legal store’ in a south London shopping centre last week. Intrigued, Obiter decided to make a little trip down to Lewisham, incognito of course, to see where the legal profession is headed, from beneath a ...
-
News
Skilled worker visa quota massively oversubscribed
So many visa applications have been submitted by highly skilled workers from outside the EU this month that November’s quota of 600 applications was reached three weeks before the end of the month, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has revealed. In July, the government introduced a ...