All News articles – Page 1613
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News
Ralli motors ahead with new iPhone app
Manchester firm Ralli has launched an iPhone app to help people keep on the right side of the motoring laws. The ‘Don’t Drink – Don’t Drive - Keep your Licence’ app, which can be downloaded for free, has been designed to enable drivers to calculate whether ...
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Wigster comparison site signs up Shoosmiths’ consumer arm
The consumer services arm of national firm Shoosmiths has joined 125 firms that have signed up with legal price comparison website Wigster, which launched at the start of this month. Access Legal from Shoosmiths is the biggest firm to sign up to the comparison site ...
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Law Society calls for greater focus on ethics in training
The Law Society has called for law degrees to include a greater focus on ethics and for a more robust system of ensuring the quality of institutions which provide legal education and training. This follows the joint review of legal services education and training announced ...
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Is trial by jury under pressure from judges?
Jury trials have been in the spotlight in the last few weeks, with two significant speeches by senior judges focusing on juries. The lord chief justice called for tough sanctions against jurors who surf the web to find information about defendants and witnesses in the case they are sitting on ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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.
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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 ...
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BME firms told to embrace alternative business structures
BME firms should embrace alternative business structures to stay in business, the new chair of the Black Solicitors Network told the Gazette this week. Nwabueze Nwokolo, who is also the Law Society council member for ethnic minorities, said: ‘Most black lawyers work in small firms, but ...
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QualitySolicitors take fight to big-brand competitors
The government’s legal aid proposals gave rise to a new traffic record for an item on the Gazette’s website. But that record didn’t last long, you might be surprised to learn.
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Call to reshape criminal justice system
by Dru Sharpling, HM Inspector of Constabulary There are swingeing budget reductions ahead for the network of agencies that make up the criminal justice system (CJS). By 2014/15 the Ministry of Justice budget will drop by 23% in real terms and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) funding ...
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Calls for major reform to law training
Pressure mounted for sweeping reform of the education and training of lawyers this week, as regulators announced a root-and-branch review of the current framework. The review was unveiled as research seen by the Gazette suggested that there are currently three times more final-year law students who ...
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Immigration cap unveiled
The Home Office has announced a 21,700 annual cap on the number of skilled immigrants from outside the EU allowed into the UK, in a move that will disappoint those in the legal profession concerned that the limit will prevent them from employing the foreign lawyers needed to service clients. ...
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Food merger, coal deal, children's car seat sale, and petroleum loan
Food for thought: City firm Herbert Smith advised food group Northern Foods on its merger with Irish food company Greencore Group, advised by magic circle firm Slaughter and May, to create £500m FTSE 250 company Essenta Foods. ...
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Class ceiling
Obiter was intrigued by a recent study on cuts to first-class travel, which are costing the legal profession a whopping £15,500 in lost productivity per employee per year, apparently.
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Lord chief justice fears new threats to jury trial
There must have been sighs of relief at the Ministry of Justice last week when officials realised that they would not be required to abolish trial by jury. The threat this time was not from the department’s grandly titled Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses. Louise Casey’s absurd demand this month ...
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Where the real unfairness lies in our ‘compensation culture’
I came across a court case the other day that throws an interesting light on the unfairness of our ‘compensation culture’. It involved a supermarket customer who tripped over a basket which had been discarded near the checkout counter. She fell and injured her shoulder. ...
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Stolen data used for email scams
Employees at foreign call centres that were engaged by claims management companies have stolen customer data that was later used to launch email scams in the UK, the Gazette has learned. The Ministry of Justice claims management regulator said this week that, after some claims management ...
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Online law degree launched in Scotland
A Scottish university will next year launch what is believed to be the first online law undergraduate degree. The online LLB from the department of law at Robert Gordon University’s Aberdeen Business School will run from September 2011. The university already runs online law masters courses. ...
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Djanogly in mediation push
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 outlined government plans to support mediation in the wake of proposals to slash legal aid. Speaking at the Centre for Effective ...