All News articles – Page 1636
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Solicitors beware
The HomeBuy Direct Scheme assists first-time purchasers with government grant delivered by the Homes and Communities Agency via housing associations.
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Warning that local solicitors will become an ‘endangered species’
Support group the Lawyers Defence Group (LDG) has called on the next government to legislate to protect access to justice and high street firms by imposing marketing restrictions on alternative business structures. The group has warned that local solicitors will become ‘an endangered species’ if ...
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What the legal services reforms could mean for how bar does business
The Legal Services Act, in combination with changes to the bar’s Code of Conduct agreed last month by the Bar Standards Board, herald a historic sea change for the bar. They give barristers the opportunity to practise in new ways that could radically change the relationship they have with solicitors. ...
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Bar sets out guidance on how chambers can compete with solicitors
The Bar Council has published guidance to chambers on setting up a new business model that will enable barristers to bid for work in competition with solicitors. The new concept, dubbed ProcureCo, is a separate corporate vehicle that can be formed as an adjunct to ...
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General counsel ‘bypass law firms’ and go directly to the bar
General counsel are increasingly bypassing law firms to go directly to the bar for legal advice, according to a report published today. A study by research company Winmark found that while commercial law firms are banking on an increase in corporate legal spend to boost their ...
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Solicitors need to communicate with authority on immigration questions
by Mark Phillipschair of the Law Society’s immigration law committee. He writes in a personal capacity If freedom of movement may be described as one of the most ancient and least protected customary rights, in the context of migration it must be recognised as one of ...
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Third-party capture is ‘legitimate’ , says Association of British Insurers
Third-party capture is ‘legitimate’ and ‘in everyone’s interests’, Nick Starling, director of general insurance and health at the Association of British Insurers, told delegates at last week’s conference. In a number of heated exchanges, Starling was grilled over the practice of third-party capture – also known ...
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Employment Appeal Tribunal issues TUPE judgment on contract wins
The first case to reach the Employment Appeal Tribunal concerning a dispute between two law firms over the employment law implications of winning a client contract from another firm has provided ‘much-needed clarification’ on the issue, experts have said. The EAT upheld an earlier tribunal decision ...
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Rising cost of PI claims against the NHS ‘cannot continue’
The escalating cost of personal injury claims against the NHS ‘simply cannot continue’ and lawyers must advise the government on a remedy, the incoming president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) said last week. Muiris Lyons (pictured), partner and head of clinical negligence at ...
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Advocate general advises against privilege for in-house lawyers
In-house lawyers in Europe should not have the same right to legal professional privilege as other lawyers, the advocate general in the long-running Akzo Nobel case said this morning. Giving her opinion on the case, which precedes the final decision of the European Court of Justice ...
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Quinn advice
I refer to your article ‘Quinn could reopen in UK’ (see [2010] Gazette, 22 April, 2). You assert that the Law Society has advised solicitors currently insured with Quinn ‘... not to take any action’.
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The truth about meetings
Obiter was intrigued by an insight into the workings of the Crown Prosecution Service, gleaned from an article in last week’s Guardian about the futility of meetings. A CPS ‘senior manager’ who (wisely) asked not to be named, is quoted as saying: ‘Don’t ...
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Data page for April 2010
The data page is the financial rates and data compiled for the Law Society Gazette by MoneyFacts group, the UK's largest supplier of savings and mortgage data. DownloadsDownload the data page for April 2010 below. ...
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Legal Services Commission delays outcome of mental health tender
The Legal Services Commission has delayed the announcement of the outcome of the mental health tender. It said: ‘Following the election we will need to discuss the outcome of the tender process with any new ministers, and it is likely that notification to applicants will take ...
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Could mediation be the answer to a hung parliament?
Proponents and practitioners of mediation often have an evangelical belief in its ability to bring about resolution to even the most intractable disputes.
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Surge in new laws sparked by recession, research reveals
Some 98% of new laws introduced by the government in 2009 were brought in as statutory instruments without full parliamentary debate, research has revealed today. Data from legal information provider Sweet & Maxwell showed that the number of laws introduced by the government during the last ...
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Jackson report: litigation processes and their impact on costs
Much has already been said about Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals for success fees, after-the-event insurance, costs shifting and the like, but much less, if anything, about litigation processes, and their impact on costs. Yet it is surely unarguable that a streamlining or simplification of the litigation process would result in ...
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A five-year Action Plan for justice in the EU
The UK has been going through waves of Cleggmania, but has largely ignored the EU as it undergoes the process of how it will be governed for the next five years. Now the EU has published its own plans for the next five years in the justice sector.
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Nationwide removes 300 firms from its conveyancing panel
Nationwide Group has shed around 300 firms from its conveyancing panel in what is understood to be a ‘risk-based review’. The Law Society has immediately entered into discussions with the lender. The group covers mortgages provided by Nationwide; the Mortgage Works; ...
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A furore over the sex offenders register
An 11-year-old boy who raped a six-year-old girl should have been given the death penalty. Or perhaps just branded with a hot iron and put on the sex offenders register for life.