All News articles – Page 1687
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News
VHCC panel for criminal work to be suspended
The Legal Services Commission has announced that the very high cost cases (VHCC) panel for criminal work will be suspended when the current contracts expire in July, because of a lack of time to run a new tendering exercise. From July 2010 the LSC said it ...
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Open the custody suite doors, Hal
In the current political climate you don’t have to travel far to find an expert opinion on the rehabilitation of offenders. But rather than ask the nearest taxi driver, the Ministry of Justice has turned to computer science to work out when we should throw away the key. According to ...
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Explosion in demand for paralegals, thinktank reveals
The number of paralegals has doubled in the last decade and is set to rise further, according to a report from government-sponsored thinktank the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. The report, which explored the country’s present and future skills needs, disclosed that the number of ...
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Planet error
Now for the latest, and possibly last, instalment in what we can only term the Obiter dicta series of amusing dictation errors. Annest Jones, litigation solicitor at City Legal, tells us of some errors typed by secretaries which we think are all rather more engaging than what was originally intended. ...
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Paying fair for practising fees
I write in my capacity as president of the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors in response to Charles Plant’s article ‘A fairer structure’ (see [2010] Gazette, 11 March, 8).
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Family law
Conflict of laws – Ancillary relief – Divorce – Foreign judgements Agbaje (respondent) v Akinnoye-Agbaje (FC) (appellant): SC (Lords Phillips (president), Rodger, Collins, Kerr, Lady Hale): 10 March 2010 ...
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Intellectual property
Contracts – Commercial law – Media and entertainment – Electronic commerce Pink Floyd Music Ltd & anr v EMI Records Ltd: Ch D (Sir Andrew Morritt (chancellor)): 11 March 2010 ...
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Lamb to the Slaughter
It is pleasing to report that friendly competition still exists between those on either side of the solicitor-barrister divide. Last week Obiter heard Robert Graham-Campbell, chief executive at top commercial litigation set Maitland, and a very brave man indeed, make a daring remark to an assembled crowd of 60 or ...
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Memory lane
Law Society’s Gazette, March 1940 Excerpt from a speech given by Randle Fynes Wilson Holme, B.A., president of the Law Society, who was chairing a ...
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Right up our street
There was something of an outcry not so long ago when proposals were announced to relax the rules on product placement on television. It will be the end of sensible plot lines, critics alleged, with gratuitous references to commercial products cropping up all over the place. Well, whatever happens when ...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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.