All News articles – Page 1701
-
News
Helping the community is good for law's hard-nosed image
Corporate social responsibility has come of age. Everybody is embracing it, from magic circle firms to sole practitioners, all trying to be considerate neighbours, treat others with respect, reduce fuel consumption, recycle waste materials, participate in the community and adopt other responsible behaviours.
-
News
Personal injury claims portal under fire
An online personal injury service that claims to save consumers time and money by cutting lawyers out of PI claims has come under fire from solicitors. Lawyers claimed the new service would see claimants ‘swallowed alive’ by companies’ claims departments. Itsmyclaim.com describes ...
-
News
CFS panel cull deferred pending talks
The Law Society has secured a two-week stay of execution for sole practitioners in a ‘first round’ of negotiations over the decision to axe 3,600 practitioners from the conveyancing panel of the newly merged Britannia and Co-operative Financial Services (CFS). Sole practitioners will remain on the ...
-
News
Carbon footprint pledge
City firm Olswang has pledged to cut its carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 as part of a new environmental campaign. The 10:10 campaign, launched last week, was set up ahead of December’s climate change talks in Copenhagen. Olswang, the only law firm among the founding members of the campaign, ...
-
News
Breaking the mould
As one might imagine, City lawyers are not the only ones to enjoy a few perks when times are good. So does the City’s troupe of journalists. When cash is plentiful, so are the freebies, and magic circle firm Allen & Overy is (or was) one of the most generous. ...
-
News
SRA is striving to boost efficiency as demands significantly increase
The increase in the practising certificate (PC) fee has come at a difficult time, as the recession continues to bite in most sectors of the legal profession. Members of the profession have the right to expect that the SRA will do its utmost to avoid placing an additional financial burden ...
-
News
City firms reject panel pitch offers due to billing terms
City firms are hitting back at increasingly aggressive cost-cutting by their corporate clients by rejecting offers of panel pitches or putting in pitches that they know are destined to fail, the Gazette has learned. Senior lawyers from the magic circle down to mid-tier commercial firms told ...
-
News
Separated from parliament, will the Supreme Court become too powerful?
Creating the Supreme Court ‘as a result of what appears to have been a last-minute decision over a glass of whisky’ seems to verge on the frivolous, Lord Neuberger tells me. ‘You muck around with a constitution like the British Constitution at your peril, because ...
-
News
Beware CMCs bearing gifts
I read with interest the letter from Denise Kitchener, chief executive of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, headed ‘Cutting out the middle man’ (see [2009] Gazette, 20 August, 5). I found myself smiling wryly at the comment of the Ministry of Justice regulator who – presumably with a straight ...
-
News
Last chance to see… that PII form before your broker pulls it away
Ok, I promise that we'll stop talking about PII now. Actually, I'm lying – it's not that I find it the most riveting subject in legal practice right now, but it is very timely, as we news people say, and we've a duty to give you as much information about ...
-
News
Local government - London Authorities Mutual Limited
The phoenix is a splendid mythical bird that is serious about regeneration. Near the end of its 500-1,000 year lifecycle it burns itself to ashes, only to emerge anew to live through another lifetime.
-
News
Freezing assets of ‘terrorists’ – how fair is the UN sanctions committee?
The attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 brought many changes to the legal landscape, of which three facets are perhaps most familiar to legal practitioners: criminal trials of suspected terrorists; control orders imposed on those suspected of terrorist activity; and the extradition of terrorist suspects to other countries, ...
-
News
APIL walks out of fixed-fee talks
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has walked out of talks on extending fixed costs in personal injury cases, the Gazette has learned. In an unprecedented move for the organisation, APIL has withdrawn from talks on extending fixed costs for all ‘fast track’ cases.
-
News
Going it alone
Christina Blacklaws describes the potential feelings of isolation some lawyers working from home in virtual law firms can experience (see [2009] Gazette, 20 August, 5).
-
News
Chancery Lane backs ABS advice subsidies
The Law Society has said new providers entering the market as alternative business structures (ABSs) should be obliged to offer financial support to existing law firms to safeguard access to justice. In its response to the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s consultation on ABSs, Chancery Lane warned ...
-
News
Supreme Court emblems cost taxpayer £50k
The Treasury’s coffers may presently echo to the ghostly rustle of rolling tumbleweed, but no expense has been spared for Britain’s new Supreme Court. Taxpayers have paid nearly £50,000 for the design of not one but two emblems for the institution, a freedom of information request has revealed. ...
-
News
£26k for a bunch of flowers
Pretty, isn’t it? Well, at £26,000, it ought to be. This floral design, which would not look out of place on a pair of Laura Ashley curtains, is the official emblem of the Supreme Court, and incorporates an English rose, some Welsh leek leaves, a Scots thistle and a northern ...
-
News
Solicitors hand back £1.5m to miners under voluntary scheme
Solicitors have handed back more than £1.5m to injured former miners under a new voluntary repayment scheme after wrongly deducting fees from miners’ government compensation awards – and this figure could rise further as the project rolls on, the Gazette can reveal.
-
News
Football fans – law-abiding pariahs
The erosion of liberty is especially insidious because it happens by barely perceptible degrees. As a resident of Edinburgh, I was always able to park in the wide streets surrounding the city’s lovely Botanical Gardens for nothing (congestion is not and never has been a problem). No longer. Now you ...
-
News
Deals delight but the recession isn't over yet
Boom! Bang! We’re a week away from the one-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, and the big guns are beginning to fire again in quick succession. In the space of just two days, we have a huge deal announced in the food sector (Kraft trying and failing to buy ...