All News articles – Page 1678
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News
Hand of Gaul
Obiter reckons Ireland’s justice minister is interpreting his remit rather loosely. Dermot Ahern intervened to demand a replay last week after Ireland were cruelly denied a place at next year’s World Cup following a blatant handball by Thierry Henry which set up a ...
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Don't tie our hands on referral fees
John Hawks has seven years on me as a solicitor and will, I suspect, remember charging scale fees for conveyancing (see letters, 19 November). By the time I qualified in 1980, changes were afoot. I now look back along the road we have travelled.
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New matter starts shortage reaching ‘crisis level’
Lawyers’ groups have warned that firms will be forced out of business and vulnerable clients turned away as the shortage of new matter starts for social welfare work hits ‘crisis level’. Carol Storer (pictured), director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG), has called on the ...
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Why newspapers lack interest in court reporting
The name Mike Taylor is not one that many lawyers will recognise, even though he has spent his entire working life writing about the law. In an extraordinary 42 years at the Press Association law courts news service, he reported countless cases in the High Court, ...
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News
CPS consults on its ‘minimum standards’
The Crown Prosecution Service has launched a consultation asking the public for views on a set of proposed minimum standards that prosecutors should achieve at each stage of the prosecution process. The document sets core quality standards for prosecutors across 12 key areas of their work, ...
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Commercial considerations can influence the discharge of liabilities
In Collier v P&MJ Wright (Holdings) Ltd [2007] EWCA Civ 1329, [2008] 1 WLR 643, [2007] All ER(D) 233 (Dec) (Collier), the Court of Appeal examined the rule in Pinnel’s case (1603) 5 Coke’s Rep 117a (the rule), in the context of contemporary commercial considerations.
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Cole dismisses FSA prosecution concerns
The Financial Services Authority has dismissed mounting concern about its broadening remit as a criminal prosecutor, following a surge in the number of cases brought by the regulator.
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Clear guidance
I write in response to Andrew Hopper and Greg Treverton-Jones’ letter Amending the Code by the back door (see letters, 19 November) on the new guidance to rule 9 (referrals of business).
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News
Clear guidance
I write in response to Andrew Hopper and Greg Treverton-Jones’ letter ‘Amending the Code by the back door’ (see letters, 19 November) on the new guidance to rule 9 (referrals of business).
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News
City firms publish environmental performance
A group of 138 legal sector organisations including top City firms will publish a report on their climate change performance in a live webcast next week. The Legal Sector Alliance (LSA) report will show the extent to which members of the group have complied with ...
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News
Talks on fixed fees for fast-track cases fail
A bid to fix the level of legal fees paid for all ‘fast-track’ cases has failed, the Gazette can reveal. The deadline for a mediation process conducted by the Civil Justice Council, which attempted to reach a deal between insurers and solicitors representing claimants and defendants, ...
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Legal Lives: solicitor Daniel Radiven on coping with cancer
Nine years ago, I made my first and previously only contribution to the Gazette. As an ambitious trainee with my former firm, Betesh, I had a letter published in which I bemoaned the absence of an adequate forum or mechanism for the assessment of costs in cases settled pre-issue. The ...
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Cafcass judicial review threat
A Somerset solicitor is set to launch a judicial review action against the Children and Family Courts Advice and Support Service (Cafcass) because of its ‘unacceptable delays’ in appointing children’s guardians and family court advisers. Martin Davis, director of the family department at Somerset firm Battens, ...
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LawNet to strengthen solicitor ‘brand’ with new website
A national network of independent law firms has launched an online consumer marketing initiative to help secure work referrals and give the firms a strong internet presence. The 65 firms that make up LawNet have banded together to launch a legal referral and advice website, called ...
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Bog standard
Legal aid lawyers may recall – with no particular fondness – the speech justice secretary Jack Straw gave back in March advising them to reconsider their earnings expectations. ‘There is certainly nothing ordained by the Almighty which says that of those paid for by the ...
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COMPETITION: Legally Blonde
A blowsy, feelgood musical is coming to London’s West End next week that’s guaranteed to lift your spirits amid the recessionary gloom. Based on the hit movie of the same name, Legally Blonde is the award-winning Broadway sensation created by Tony Award-winning director and Olivier Award-nominated choreographer Jerry Mitchell (Hairspray). ...
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New PC charges to benefit in-house lawyers
Changes to the practising certificate (PC) fee charging system will see around £16m transferred onto private practice solicitors, to the benefit of in-house and local government lawyers, under plans due to be unveiled by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Under the new charging regime, 40% of ...
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Bar Standards Board sanctions legal disciplinary practices
The Bar Standards Board gave the green light for barristers to go into practice with solicitors last week, but proposed an extension of the cab-rank rule to all advocates including solicitors. At a meeting last week the BSB decided that barristers could join legal disciplinary partnerships ...
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News
A bold step forward for the bar – or is it?
It has been a long time coming, but the Bar Standards Board finally made a decision last week to allow barristers to go into partnership, not only with each other, but even with those dreadfully commercial solicitor types. It may have taken five consultations and two years of deliberation, but ...
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Lacking confidence in Lord Bach
Further to your news item ‘Compulsory pro bono’ (see letters, 12 November) I must express my amusement at Lord Bach’s views on pro bono work and the ‘concern’ he has about the lack of confidence in our profession. Perhaps he should address the lack of confidence the publicly funded members ...