All News articles – Page 1647
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News
Top legal process outsourcing providers plan ‘aggressive expansion’
Two of the top three legal process outsourcing (LPO) providers are plotting aggressive growth in anticipation of a flood of mandates in 2010, the Gazette has learned. The news comes shortly after the third LPO provider in the trio, CPA Global, announced similarly ambitious plans ...
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What can be done to help law students against the limited number of jobs?
Beth Wanono is Law Society council member representing LPC students and trainees and is writing in that capacity How do we tackle the bottleneck? Do students need more ...
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Acquisition of Care UK and the creation of Eurostar International
Plan from the Pru: City firm Herbert Smith advised Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Cazenove and HSBC on financing UK insurer Prudential’s $35.5bn (£23.4bn) acquisition of the Asian operations of insurer AIG, advised by US firm Debevoise & Plimpton. Magic circle firm Slaughter and ...
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Solicitor-advocates must overcome prejudice to become wholy accepted
by Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, immediate past chairman of the Solicitors Association of Higher Court Advocates. The views expressed are personal and not those of the SAHCA In 2009 higher court advocacy reached its 15th year – and it is perhaps unsurprising that it endured a sustained attack ...
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Data page for March 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. Downloads Download the ...
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O2 slams letters sent out by lawyers to alleged internet file-sharers
Mobile phone company O2 has waded into the row over controversial letters sent by lawyers to alleged internet file-sharers. O2 broadband customers are among the thousands who have received letters from London firm ACS Law, which acts on behalf of DigiProtect, an anti-piracy firm, and ...
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EC raps UK government over environment failure
The government is facing ‘costly and embarrassing’ legal action for not providing affordable access to justice for individuals seeking to challenge decisions affecting the environment, lawyers have warned. The European Commission has issued the UK with a reasoned opinion, or final warning, following its failure to ...
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Discrimination debate – the trials of being a woman
Three women have just been subjected to corporal punishment under sharia law in Malaysia for having sex out of wedlock. It takes two to tango, of course, and yet no man was punished. Discriminatory or what?
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Chancery Lane calls for ‘radical rethink’ of legal aid funding
A loan fund akin to the student loans scheme and a ‘polluter pays’ funding mechanism are among ideas advanced today for legal aid funding by the Law Society. Launching its interim Access to Justice Review, the Society called for a ‘radical rethink’ of legal aid ...
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Libel reform bill planned after the next election
Justice secretary Jack Straw yesterday announced that a bill reforming the law of libel will be introduced in the next parliament. The planned legislation, which arises from a report from the Ministry of Justice’s Libel Working Group, is designed to improve the rules covering defamation on the internet and ...
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Marketing in the community – join up and join in
With all the debate about referral fees, it is important to recognise that all marketing activities have a cost. Often, rather than hard cash, this is the cost of your time invested in building your personal network.
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Lawyers and torture: should we see the memos?
One of the characteristics of the US is that they take good things to excess - witness their presidential election process, or the 37 different varieties of salad dressing offered in a deli. At present, they are taking another good thing to excess: arguing over the role of lawyers in ...
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Too little, too late
While the announcement that the Legal Services Commission will be delaying payments to solicitors should not, in itself, have any long-lasting impact upon the profession, it just goes to show how much power the LSC has over us.
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Top firms fear fee pressure
Commercial law firms see downward pressure on fees as the greatest threat to their profitability in the year ahead, research has revealed. A survey of finance directors at the top 100 law firms, commissioned by publisher Sweet & Maxwell, showed that 60% thought fee pressure would ...
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One in five consumers surfs internet to find a solicitor
The internet has become the second most popular means of finding a solicitor for conveyancing or advising on a will, research seen exclusively by the Gazette has shown. A YouGov poll of 2,266 people commissioned by online solicitor directory legallybetter.com revealed that personal recommendation remains by ...
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Sleepwalking complaint
I was interested to note that Zahida Manzoor, the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner, has announced in her valedictory annual report that LCS managers and staff are to be praised for meeting all three of targets of the service (see [2010] Gazette, 4 March, 2)
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MoJ reveals top-earning legal aid firms
London firm Duncan Lewis topped the tables published today by the Ministry of Justice of the firms that earn the most from legal aid. In the year ending March 2009, Duncan Lewis received £9.9m from the community legal service’s annual £900m budget, almost twice as much ...
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Could unqualified prosecutors lead to miscarriages of justice?
The regulator of the Institute of Legal Executives, ILEX Professional Services, is consulting on proposals to grant extended rights of audience to associate prosecutors (APs) in the magistrates' court.
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Justice secretary announces court closures
Justice secretary Jack Straw has announced the closure of 20 ‘under-used’ magistrates' courts. The following courts will close: Bourne; Bridport; Cheshunt; Cullompton; Dorking; Eastleigh; Gainsborough; Havant, Launceston; Louth; Mildenhall; Linehead; Sherborne; Sleaford; Stamford; Wantage; Wareham; Wells; Whitby and Widnes. The majority, ...
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Accreditation reforms
I am writing with regard to the letter headed 'No level playing field' (letters online, 11 March). The credibility of the immigration system and the lawyers that work within it rests on this accreditation scheme, which took its current form in 2004 to provide a high level of assurance on ...