All News articles – Page 1706
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News
Media law: protecting informants
Financial Times Limited and others v United Kingdom (application number 821/03), 15 December 2009.From time to time, an anonymous brown paper envelope finds its way mysteriously onto a reporter’s desk. That envelope contains leaked confidential documents telling a hell of a good story. ...
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Memory lane
Notes from the editor at the end of the 1950s, reflecting on the implementation of legal aid. A letter from a Council Member looking back on certain changes throughout his career. ...
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Martial law
In response to Christopher Digby-Bell’s letter of 7 January, I quote field marshal von Moltke: ‘No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.’ Michael Timms, M R Timms & Company, Dudley
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Right mechanism
I write with regard to Dick Jennings’s comment piece ‘Time is of the essence’ (see [2009] Gazette, 10 December, 10). His central premise is that legal services differ from other services in that cost cannot be predicted and value cannot be measured – a view that I fundamentally disagree with ...
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Mediation success
The story ‘Family mediation pilot achieves mixed results’ (news, 7 January) suggested that court-based mediation in the pilot scheme had disappointing results.
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Negligence
Breach of duty of care – Negligent misrepresentation – Solicitors Cabvision Ltd v (1) Leonard Paul Feetum (2) Stephen Richard Marsden (3) Simon Alan Smith (4) Dean & Dean: ChD (Mr Justice Norris): 21 December 2009 ...
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Payment by results
Both Natalie Saunders and Neil Wright make the point that it is the client and not the solicitor who should pay for the time wasted by inexpert or incompetent solicitors acting on the other side of a transaction or dispute (letters, 14 January).
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In two minds about schizophrenia?
Our society has an ambivalent attitude to schizophrenia, as a cursory search of the news for the first half of January 2010 makes abundantly clear.
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Tax lawyers report rise in tribunal appeals work
Tax litigation lawyers have seen a 14% increase in tribunal cases as a result of more aggressive tax collection by HM Revenue & Customs. A report by accountants UHY Hacker Young found that tax tribunals cases grew from 4,311 in 2007 to 4,897 in 2008, with ...
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Straw to crack down on lawyers’ defamation fees
The Ministry of Justice has launched a four-week consultation proposing an ‘urgent’ interim measure to limit the success fees that can be claimed by lawyers in defamation cases. The consultation paper proposes limiting the uplift charged by lawyers for winning defamation cases taken on under conditional ...
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Echoing Lord Justice Jackson on alternative dispute resolution
Here is one of the big issues facing the EU: how do you successfully communicate laws and policies to more than 500 million citizens in 23 official languages?
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MPs warn of criminal justice 'crisis'
A committee of MPs has warned that the criminal justice system is ‘facing a crisis of sustainability’ as government spending on prisons takes resources away from other aspects of criminal justice. The Justice Committee said the government should make ‘radical moves’ to shift resources away from ...
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YouGov survey sheds light on professional services
With an hour to kill at the dentist on Monday, with my son in the hot seat, I took along a little light reading – the recent YouGov survey results published on behalf of the Legal Services Board.
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SRA makes £3m payment to help clients of Wolstenholmes
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has made a payment of £3m to help clients whose conveyancing transactions have been left in limbo by the closure of Cheshire firm Wolstenholmes. The money has come from the Compensation Fund, which is administered by the SRA and funded by the ...
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Time-based charging cannot be abandoned entirely
I agree that lawyers are going to have to find better ways to operate than the traditional and arguably anachronistic method of charging their clients with reference to six-minute units of time. It is not the case, however, that ‘either the lawyers are experts who know what they are doing ...
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Wind farms, delivery acquisitions and traffic light replacements
Gone with the wind: City and national firm Eversheds advised a number of energy companies, including six in the Forewind Consortium, on securing £50bn worth of contracts to build offshore wind farms under a government leasing programme. City firm Norton Rose advised the ...
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SRA warns lawyers acting in civil recovery claims against shoplifters
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned lawyers not to ‘diminish public trust in the profession’ when acting in civil recovery claims against alleged shoplifters. The warning arose in response to a report by the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) on the fines levied and tactics used by ...
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London's development agency slashes legal panel spend
The Mayor of London’s economic development agency has slashed millions of pounds from its spend on panel law firms since 2007, according to recently released figures. The London Development Agency (LDA) spent more than £8.53m on advice from panel firms in the 2007/08 financial year, but ...
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Legal aid payments delayed by LSC IT glitch
Technical problems at the Legal Services Commission delayed payments that were due to all legal aid solicitors at the start of the year. The payment systems at the LSC went down for a day and a half, which meant the BACS payment run that was due ...