All News articles – Page 1655
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Political lobby interests disclosed
Two MPs and one lord have taken up new lobbying or advisory roles connected with law firms over the past year, parliamentary registers show. New on the register is John Hutton, Labour MP for Barrow and Furness, who was paid £11,000 by national firm Eversheds to ...
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Roar deal
Jennie Swaby, a child care solicitor at Southampton firm Eric Robinson (pictured with her husband Mark), has sent us this snap from her recent month-long stint as a volunteer at Antelope Park in Zimbabwe, which is the subject of the documentary Lion Country currently airing on ITV. Looks like she ...
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Coodes unveils online legal service
A 263-year-old south-west law firm has stepped into the internet age by launching a new online legal service in preparation for competition from new entrants to the market. Devon and Cornwall firm Coodes, established in 1747, has set up Coodes Direct offering fixed-price legal advice, plus ...
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Commission impossible
As Obiter waits with bated breath to read Sir Ian Magee’s report on the Legal Services Commission (incidentally, there’s no word yet on when it might be published, even though the anticipated January delivery date has been and gone), there was even more bad news from the beleaguered quango last ...
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Commercial reality
Richard Tinn appears to be accusing me of departing from the traditional values of our profession in suggesting that clients want fixed fees instead of time-based charging (see [2010] Gazette, 18 February, 11).
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Insurer claims public will pay more if Jackson is implemented
The public will bear the brunt of increased civil litigation costs if Lord Justice Jackson’s report is implemented in full, a leading insurer claimed this week. Speaking at the Law Society Civil Justice Section annual conference, Dominic Clayden, director of technical claims at Aviva, said the ...
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Civil procedure
Costs – Personal injury – Allocation – Detailed assessment Drew v Whitbread: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Waller (vice-president), Hooper, Etherton): 9 February 2010 The appellant (D) appealed against ...
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In-house warning over City law firm skills gap
Solicitors from the ‘cosseted environment’ of top City law firms have been denied the skills and experience they need to make the transition to an in-house role, leading general counsel have warned. In-house lawyers have complained that they cannot recruit the right candidate from private practice ...
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Committee proposes libel law changes
A parliamentary committee has proposed wide-ranging changes to the libel laws but rejected the introduction of legislation on privacy. The Commons Culture, Media and Sports Committee recommended that the Press Complaints Commission amended its code to include a new requirement that journalists notify the subject of ...
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OFT calls for referral fee payment regulation
The Office of Fair Trading has recommended that the government consider legislation to regulate the payment of referral fees to estate agents, but stopped short of calling for them to be banned. In a report on home buying and selling published last week, the OFT said ...
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Surveyors call the shots
As a chartered building surveyor of 40 years’ standing, my specialisms have been in the preparation of full building surveys (previously known as structural surveys) and what are known as ‘engineers reports’.
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With reply to Pat McFadden's 'Breaking the class ceiling'
I read Pat McFadden's article ‘Breaking the class ceiling’ (see [2010] Gazette, 11 February, 10) with interest and some frustration.
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The controversial business of tracing beneficiaries of unclaimed estates
In May 2009, Trevor Moore, a 61-year-old IT consultant from Hertfordshire, was alerted to the existence of a hitherto unknown cousin by the approach of a one-man-band probate research company that was looking for potential beneficiaries for an unclaimed estate. Trevor was told it ‘probably wasn’t you’, but this unsolicited ...
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Nationwide Autocentre sale and mining asset spinoff
Sales drive: North-west firm Brabners Chaffe Street advised car service and repair operator Nationwide Autocentres on its £73.2m sale to retailer Halfords, advised by national firm Pinsent Masons. Asset building: Magic circle ...
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Solicitor concerns over plans to scrap ARP
Solicitors have voiced concerns over ‘knee-jerk’ proposals to abolish the assigned risks pool (ARP) next year in their responses to a Solicitors Regulation Authority consultation on the issue. The Law Society said it did not support the SRA’s plan to scrap the pool, which it ...
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Pioneering public sector alliance to offer 'budget' legal services
Cardiff and East Midlands law firm Geldards has teamed up with Kent County Council (KCC) to offer ‘budget’ legal services to the public sector across England and Wales. The two organisations have formed Law:Public, a public sector legal team of more than 100 lawyers, in what ...
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Representing all
I would like to clarify an important point in relation to last week’s news story ‘Large firms in legal aid talks’ (see [2010] Gazette 18 February, 1) .
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Finding alternative ways to fund legal aid
Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming general election, it would take a rash and rose-tinted legal sector observer to predict any real terms increases over the next few years in the UK’s £2bn legal aid budget. Talk of swingeing cuts at those government departments not ...
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Poorer students cannot afford to become legal aid lawyers
Students from low-income backgrounds cannot afford to become legal aid lawyers, according to a report published today by the group for Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL). The report warned that legal aid lawyers were becoming less representative of the clients they help. ...
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Some criminal advocates ‘not up to the job’
Research on how to assess standards of advocacy has backed up anecdotal evidence that there are problems with the quality of some criminal advocates, but found there is no significant disparity between the performance of solicitors and barristers. Professor Richard Moorhead of Cardiff Law School, who ...