All News articles – Page 1694
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News
Human rights are above politics - they are our greatest ethical challenge
by Sir Geoffrey Bindmana consultant with Bindmans and chair of the British Institute of Human Rights The recent symposium organised by the Law Society’s International Human Rights Committee in conjunction with the Essex University Human Rights Centre marked a huge advance in the Society’s engagement with ...
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Law firms should be able to ‘self govern’, says Hunt report
By Paul RogersonA wide-ranging review of solicitors’ regulation commissioned last year by the Law Society and conducted by Lord Hunt of Wirral was published on Monday. Among the Tory peer’s 88 ?recommendations is a proposal for what he describes as ‘authorised internal regulation’, a new system of self-governance available ...
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How the ABI wants to get the PII market back on track
The frenetic pace of the renewals season is now over and this year seems, for many, to have been the most challenging yet. With the 1 October deadline gone, there has been anger, disappointment and worry among smaller solicitors’ firms over the cost and availability of cover, as highlighted in ...
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London councils slash £1.5m in legal spend
Six London boroughs have joined together to slash almost £1.5m a year in legal fees. The London Boroughs Legal Alliance (LBLA), which links lawyers from Harrow, Hammersmith & Fulham, Camden, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Kensington & Chelsea borough councils, aims to save £1.44m a year by using ...
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Chancery Lane ‘dismay’ at Co-op’s panel cull
The Law Society has expressed its ‘dismay’ at the decision by Co-operative Financial Services to cut 3,600 sole practitioners from its conveyancing panel. The Society said that the Co-op has jeopardised its ethical image by threatening consumer choice and putting solicitors’ livelihoods at risk. Access to ...
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What kind of law firm are you? NB: You may not know the answer
The legal services market appears to be on the up, at least for the big firms. Mortgage approvals are rising. Halifax Legal Express wants to recruit a panel to deal with the legal services enquiries its automated system can't handle.
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Can lawyers agree over contingency fees?
Contingency fees, which are widely used in employment tribunals but banned in other areas of law such as personal injury, have come to the fore recently as various bodies have submitted their responses to the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on the issue, launched in July.
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A riposte to Professor Richard Susskind
I attended last week a meeting in Dublin of the chief executives of bars and law societies from around the world – well, from Europe, and common law jurisdictions beyond Europe (Africa, North America and the Asia Pacific region).
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Lord Hunt publishes regulation review
A wide-ranging review of solicitors' regulation commissioned by the Law Society and conducted by Lord Hunt of Wirral (pictured) is published today. Among the Tory peer's 88 recommendations is a proposal for what he describes as 'authorised internal regulation', under which law firms of all sizes would regulate themselves subject ...
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Society's PII helpline to target assigned risks pool
The Law Society has announced that from next Monday, 5 October, its professional indemnity insurance helpline will expand its service to assist firms that have fallen into the assigned risks pool because they were unable to obtain cover before the renewal deadline.
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Private equity: the discussion is already well under way
Over on our LinkedIn group some really interesting discussion topics are being batted around, especially about what possible future investment in law firms by private equity firms might mean...
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Valuable training
I am disappointed to read of the Legal Services Policy Institute’s suggestion that training contracts be scrapped and that students qualify immediately upon completion of the LPC (see [2009] Gazette, 24 September, 1).
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Rhyme and reason
The Gazette caught it in the neck recently for describing conveyancing as ‘prosaic’. Suitably contrite, we issued a challenge to solicitors of a poetic bent to disprove that provocative description in verse. Martin Smith of Borehamwood has duly obliged: ...
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Let’s be practical
As a newly qualified lawyer, I note with interest that the Legal Services Policy Institute is proposing that the training contract be scrapped. Yes, it is difficult to get a training contract in the current climate and yes, it is even more difficult to secure employment after completion of training. ...
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Memory lane
Law Society’s Gazette, October 1949 Public, commercial and overseas appointmentsGold Coast
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Free Roman Polanski – now!
Doesn’t your heart go out to film director Roman Polanski? He was arrested in Switzerland last week and yet all the poor guy had done, according to the 1977 charges against him, was sodomise a 13-year-old girl and force her to engage in ‘oral copulation’.
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Discouraging words
The headline ‘Firms "over the worst" of recession’ (see [2009] Gazette, 24 September, 1) may have been intended to be encouraging, but readers will have been struck by the extraordinary insensitivity of the wording of the report, which said that firms were ‘finally reaping the rewards of staff cuts’.
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LG Law and Practice diploma
Congratulations from the board to this year's successful candidates and prizewinners. The diploma celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2009, and several hundred solicitors have earned the highly respected "Dip. L.G." letters after their names over that time. The course lasts for nine months, counts for CPD ...
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Insider dealing prosecution
Two former City lawyers charged with eight counts of insider dealing by the Financial Services Authority have been committed to stand trial at Southwark Crown Court. Andrew Rimmington, former partner at US firm Dorsey & Whitney, and Michael McFall, former partner at US firm McDermott Will ...