All News articles – Page 1643
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News
Lloyds’ hidden agenda
Despite 26 years of good service, we have recently suffered the blow of withdrawal of our conveyancing panel membership by Lloyds Banking Group. We are obviously taking immediate steps to seek the rescission of this decision. It is important for firms to appreciate ...
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Big is not better
On 10 February 2010 several large legal aid fims met Jack Straw and discussed the future. The MoJ has disclosed the names of the firms which attended but has indicated that the agenda and minutes are secret. I wonder if Tony Edwards' recent comment in the ...
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Unrealistic deadlines
I am primarily a conveyancing solicitor and have recently been dealing with a number of purchases whereby I have been given 10 working days to exchange contracts from receipt of the papers. Do solicitors not realise when placing these deadlines that the solicitor acting for purchasers needs to apply for ...
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News
Duty solicitors are not ‘overpaid’
I was surprised to see Mr Edwards’ claim that many duty solicitors are ‘overpaid’. When one considers the hours worked, experience gained and education obtained in the pursuit of duty solicitor status, duty solicitors are in the main underpaid. If one compares a duty solicitor’s salary to that ...
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Green nightmare
Department of Energy and Climate Change documents have reportedly revealed that the much-vaunted Carbon Reduction Scheme will be enforced against company executives and employees with the sanction of heavy fines and even imprisonment if there is perceived to be any failure to provide ‘assistance’ and so on. This revelation is ...
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Cashier stole £1.6m from Midlands law firm
A former cashier at a Midlands law firm has admitted stealing £1.6m from her employer. Louise Martini from Solihull pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering and theft of £1.6m from the accounts of Solihull and Shirley firm Williamson & Soden, in a hearing at Gloucester ...
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Fox Hayes partners face £1m fine
Eight former partners of collapsed Leeds firm Fox Hayes have been held personally responsible for a fine of nearly £1m which was levied against the firm 18 months ago by the Financial Services Authority and remains unpaid. The upper financial services tribunal decided earlier this year ...
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Law firm found to have broken ABS rules
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has found that a law firm overstepped the rules on alternative business structures in an arrangement with an outsourcer. Publishing an investigation into the agreement between Bradford, Glasgow and Newcastle firm Optima Legal and outsourcing company Capita, the SRA said that ‘while ...
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JAG plan for advocate reaccreditation 'every five years'
All criminal solicitor-advocates and barristers including Queen’s Counsel would face compulsory reaccreditation every five years under proposals put forward by the Joint Advocacy Group (JAG) last week. The JAG was established by the Bar Standards Board, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and ILEX Professional Standards to develop ...
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Challenging arbitration awards
One of the fundamental policy reasons behind the enactment of the Arbitration Act 1996 was the need to allow parties to resolve their disputes through arbitration and without judicial intervention.
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August is proving to be a busy month for small and medium-sized firms
Not so long ago, the August hiatus was a soporific experience for the Gazette. Just two issues and no interactive website to tell you about real-time developments – not that there often were many, mind you, as the profession’s great and good decamped to southern Europe.
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Gazette seeks nominations for Legal Personality of the Year Award
The Gazette is looking for legal professionals who are ‘influential, inspirational and in the public eye’ for its inaugural Gazette Legal Personality of the Year award, with just over a week to go until the deadline for nominations. The award aims to recognise those who have ...
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News
Chancery Lane in legal bid over family tender
The Law Society is preparing a high court challenge against the Legal Services Commission’s family tender process. Chancery Lane today informed the LSC of its intention to seek a judicial review of the exercise, which has slashed the number of firms able to do family law ...
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News
Professional indemnity insurance boost for sole practitioners
Travelers, the second-largest professional indemnity insurer, has struck an exclusive agreement with Quinn’s former broker, Prime Professions, to offer cover to sole practitioners left in limbo by Quinn’s expected departure from the market. Quinn presently insures around 1,900 sole practitioners and about 1,000 small firms.
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Exclusive: Legal price comparison site set to break new ground
Law firms have been invited to register for free on what is claimed to be the first legal services price comparison website to give consumers instant details of costs. Nick Miller, who has practised in the Hull area as a high street practitioner for 22 years, ...
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Call to SRA to loosen solicitor conduct rules
The Legal Services Consumer Panel has called for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to scrap the conduct provisions that prevent a solicitor from acting for both seller and purchaser, and for both lender and borrower in a conveyancing transaction. Responding to the SRA’s current consultation on its ...
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News
Be careful what you wish for
The Gazette’s opinion of 5 August is headed Big bang theory. There is already a ‘big bang’ going on in the profession with regard to access to justice for clients.
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Establishing causation when an injury has more than one cause
Where an injury could have had more than one cause, what must be proved to establish causation? This issue has engaged the House of Lords on several occasions, and two differing answers have been forthcoming. The differing and inconsistent tests are categorised as the ‘material contribution’ test and the ‘but ...
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Firms seek to launch High Court challenge to LSC tender process
Some 31 firms across the north-east have joined forces in a bid to launch a High Court challenge to the Legal Services Commission’s recent family tender process, the Gazette has learned. The group of firms in Teesside, Durham and Newcastle, led by Helen Scourfield, associate at ...
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Social welfare warning over Manchester CLAS delay
The delayed timetable for Manchester’s new Community Legal Advice Service (CLAS) will make it impossible for some clients to obtain advice on social welfare problems, the Law Society has warned. The Legal Services Commission told the Gazette it will announce the bidders who have won contracts ...