All News articles – Page 1686
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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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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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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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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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Examining the RTA provisions ahead of next month’s implementation
The Civil Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2010 and update 52 come into force on 30 April. This article is confined to a summary of the most important aspects of these amendments, namely the new Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents (the RTA Protocol). All lawyers ...
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MoJ set to tighten up on legal aid and squeeze out smaller players
It was no coincidence that the Ministry of Justice chose to release details of the highest-paid legal aid barristers and firms at the same time as it unveiled its latest plans for a tendering system for legal aid work. The unsubtle message is, ‘we’re tightening ...
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Purge of criminal legal aid firms planned
Up to 75% of criminal legal aid firms will be removed from the market under far-reaching provider reforms set to be implemented from next summer. The plans, announced by the Ministry of Justice this week, envisage a consolidated market in which contracts for larger volumes of ...
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Partner exodus forecast once alternative business structures available
Experienced City law firm partners will quit their firms in droves to set up a new wave of boutique practices once alternative business structures (ABSs) are available, leading market commentators are predicting. Professor Richard Susskind (pictured) and Maitland Chambers chief executive Robert Graham-Campbell forecast that the ...
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Lord Neuberger calls for single appeals tribunal
The master of the rolls has recommended that a single body should be responsible for hearing appeals brought by lawyers or legal businesses found to have breached licensing and ownership rules. Lord Neuberger said it is essential that common standards are applicable across the profession.
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Tories rule out ban on PI referral fees
A Conservative government would not enforce a blanket ban on personal injury referral fees, shadow justice minister Henry Bellingham told the Gazette this week. The remarks appear to signal a softening in Tory policy, and go against one of Lord Justice Jackson’s key proposals in his ...
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Women solicitors believe flexible working damages career
Many women solicitors believe their careers will be damaged if they take up more flexible working arrangements, a large-scale study has revealed. A survey of 800 women solicitors conducted by King’s College London together with the Association of Women Solicitors (AWS) found that half of ...
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Environmental search data breakthrough for conveyancing solicitors
Conveyancing solicitors could get free access to more environmental search information from local authorities following an Information Tribunal ruling. In a case concerning East Riding of Yorkshire, the tribunal ruled that the local authority should have allowed a representative from a private search company to inspect ...
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Latest developments in business education for lawyers
Training for lawyers can be a lot like buying legal services – a distress purchase made at the point of no return, says Deborah Walker, business development manager at Manchester Metropolitan University’s (MMU) School of Law.
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Success fee cut in defamation cases delayed by former Commons speaker
Government plans to cut success fees for lawyers in defamation cases have been delayed by the former House of Commons speaker Lord Martin of Springburn (pictured). Martin has tabled a ‘motion of regret’ against the proposal to reduce from 100% to 10% the maximum uplift that ...
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City firms in the dark
Founding firms in the Legal Sector Alliance including Allen & Overy and Lovells have pledged to take part in the symbolic ‘Earth Hour’ lights-out event on Saturday 27 March at 8.30pm, in which they will switch off their lights for an hour. ...
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Civil procedure
Civil evidence – Personal injury – Appeals – Fraud – Fresh evidence Martin Raymond Owens v Mark Noble: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Sedley, Elias, Lady Justice Smith): 10 March 2010 ...
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Local government: general competence to restore vires confidence
If money does actually make the world go round (as enthusiastically asserted by MC and Sally Bowles in the 1972 film Cabaret) then it is confidence that fuels it. For, as we have all been experiencing, just as confidence ebbs, so does the economic system slow down and stagnate. And ...
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Competence issue
The comments of the Law Society on the Institute of Legal Executives consultation on associate prosecutor advocacy training come a little late (see [2010] Gazette, 18 March, 1). Your report omits to say that this issue was debated and settled by parliament when the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act passed ...
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SRA consults solicitors on overhaul of regulation
The Solicitors Regulation Authority today launched its biggest consultation to date, on root-and-branch changes to regulation of the legal sector. The campaign, Freedom in Practice: Better Outcomes for Consumers, will see the SRA enter a comprehensive dialogue with solicitors in England and Wales on the ...