All News articles – Page 1607
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News
LSB approves £428 practising certificate fee
The Legal Services Board has approved the level of the individual practising fee at £428 per solicitor for 2010/11. Solicitors, recognised European lawyers and recognised foreign lawyers (RFL) will pay the individual fee, while their firms will also pay a firm-based fee, which will be calculated ...
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Pleural plaques compensation scheme opens
Pleural plaques victims frustrated by a 2007 House of Lords decision on compensation can now claim £5,000 from the government if they lodged a claim before the ruling. The Pleural Plaques Former Claimants Payment Scheme opened yesterday for applications, which must be lodged before 1 August ...
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Helping the criminal suspect: the letter of rights
I am in Colorado at the moment, and so you will forgive me if I again use cowboy metaphors to describe the latest actions of commissioner Reding. She has come riding down into the canyon (and there are plenty of those in Colorado), lassoed the horse rustling member states ...
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Consumer contracts - we need an independent ombudsman
It’s not realistic for consumers to seek redress in the courts for unfair contract terms, says Dr Olufemi Amao. We need an independent ombudsman scheme Since the introduction of the Unfair Terms in Consumer ...
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APIL urges government to tighten grip on claims management companies
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has called on Lord Young to recommend tighter regulation of claims management companies (CMCs) as part of his review of health and safety laws. Senior figures from APIL held a face-to-face meeting with Lord Young of Graffham to offer advice ...
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Will LPO pose a threat to junior lawyers?
So the latest news on private equity investment in law firms is that, as far as the City firms are concerned at least, the investors have gone cold.
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Solicitors ‘delaying’ conveyances due to staff shortages
Staff shortages at conveyancing firms are slowing down property transactions, according to a prominent estate agent and former anti-home information pack campaigner. Nick Salmon, commercial director of independent estate agents Harrison Murray who founded anti-HIP group Splinta, told the Gazette that ‘understaffed’ firms are struggling ...
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Solicitors welcome ruling on asylum deportations
The Law Society has welcomed the High Court’s ruling that the fast-track deportation of foreign nationals, which did not allow enough time for them to seek legal advice, is unlawful. In January 2010, the Home Office widened its policy of waiving the usual 72-hour notice ...
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Payback time
Ken Clarke is very keen on restorative justice, if we are to believe reports that criminals will be let out of jail early if they say sorry to their victims. Restorative justice is an important way for criminals to realise the human cost of their crimes. And it also happens ...
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Pots and kettles
The Gazette website reported this week on the dodgy doings of judges and magistrates contained in the Office for Judicial Complaints’ annual report. Snippets of bad behaviour gleaned from the report included one instance where an unnamed magistrate, presumably in a frightful sulk, refused to return to the courtroom to ...
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Information law: the future
The coalition government has announced a series of legislative proposals and initiatives which will have a big impact on information law. David Cameron has said he wants to rip off the ‘cloak of secrecy’ around government and public services and extend transparency as far as possible.
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Outcry over erosion of rule of law in Maldives
A former Maldives attorney general has called on the Law Society to lead a mission to the country to assess the erosion of the rule of law, as judges are assaulted, courts suspended, and citizens’ rights ‘crushed under foot’, he claimed. Dr Hassan Saeed told the ...
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New PII market entrant
A new insurer has entered the solicitors’ professional indemnity insurance (PII) market focusing on firms of up to five partners, the Law Society disclosed last week.
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Reforms to employment tribunals are urgently needed
by Joanne Owers, chair of the Employment Lawyers Association and chair of the ELA Working Party on Employment Tribunals This spring the management committee of the Employment Lawyers Association (ELA) decided to conduct a survey of its 5,500 members across England, Wales and Scotland to gain ...
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Confusion over slots for Criminal Defence Service duty rota
I have reached the end of my tether, with the help of the Legal Services Commission Criminal Defence Service. I realised that the end was in sight when I visited its website on 12 July. The duty rota for our scheme had been published on ...
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Conveyancing panel concerns
Lloyds Banking Group has announced that it is to remove from its conveyancing panel those firms that carry out a low volume of mortgage work over a rolling 12-month period. Does that mean that Lloyds no longer wishes to look after our low-volume client and office ...
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Mental health lawyers concerned over tender contracts
Mental health lawyers have expressed concern at the impact of the Legal Services Commission’s recent tender process as national firm Duncan Lewis seeks to recruit 28 mental health lawyers under a new consultancy model to fulfil its contracts. Duncan Lewis, an established legal aid provider in ...
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Coal miners pursue law firms over ‘undersettled’ compensation
The first known court actions against law firms for alleged undersettlement of sick coal miners’ government compensation claims will begin preliminary hearings in mid-August, the Gazette has learned. A number of defendant firms have already settled out of court. Oldham County Court is due to hold ...
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Offaly clever
Which sportsman played World Cup football and test match cricket for his country? How many prime ministers have served under our present Queen? What is Inspector Morse’s first name? All, it seems, perfectly easy questions for the profession’s intellectual elite, who – along with Obiter – last week competed in ...
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Civil procedure
Costs – Human rights – Demonstrations Rebecca Hall and Others v Mayor of London (on behalf of the Greater London Authority): CA (Civ Div) (Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Master of the Rolls, Lady Justice Arden, Lord Justice Stanley Burton): ...