All News articles – Page 1713
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News
Law Centres Federation posts cartoons on YouTube
The Law Centres Federation (LCF) has posted four cartoons on video-sharing website YouTube, aimed at showcasing the benefits of free community legal advice. The videos were played to ministers and MPs at the House of Lords on Tuesday, at an event hosted by legal aid minister ...
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Lawyers’ helplines report rise in redundancy-related calls
The number of solicitors contacting helplines has risen sharply in recent weeks, the Gazette has learned, with many of the calls relating to redundancy. Some callers have been considered to be at risk of suicide. Both the pastoral care line LawCare and ...
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Does environmental law have built-in growth potential?
With work expected to increase in planning, renewable energy and climate change, is environmental law a specialism with growth build-in? With the government hoping to kick-start a ‘green recovery’, so that the UK emerges from the recession as a low-carbon economy, environmental law remains high on ...
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Bubble rap
More plinth action from solicitors this week. Following last week’s revelation that Norfolk’s answer to The King, litigator Mark Fitch, is to perform an Elvis impersonation on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth today at 8pm, Obiter has learned of another lawyer limbering up for a stint as part of artist Antony ...
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Lack of quality checks for law schools will ‘breed incompetent solicitors’, warns CoL
The lack of quality assurance for law schools risks ‘breeding a generation of incompetent solicitors’, the head of one of the biggest providers has warned. Nigel Savage, chief executive of the College of Law, said monitoring by the Solicitors Regulation Authority is not sufficient to ensure ...
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Defence solicitors boycott Kent virtual court pilot
Defence solicitors have scuppered the government’s plan to extend the virtual court scheme to Kent by boycotting the initiative. No Kent solicitors have agreed to take part in the scheme, which they say is not in the best interests of clients or defence lawyers. Two London ...
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Legal Services Ombudsman criticises performance of regulator and complaints body
The Legal Services Ombudsman (LSO) has praised the work of her own department in her annual report, but criticised the performance of both the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Complaints Service. Zahida Manzoor (pictured) said her own department ‘has again performed to a very high ...
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CPD a better tool
I have never thought that peer review was an appropriate quality assurance tool. It is an appropriate tool to assess how a solicitor and a firm conduct cases if there are concerns expressed by clients or colleagues.
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LSC climbdown over best value tendering
The Legal Services Commission has today delayed the national rollout of best value tendering (BVT) for criminal work by three years, pending a ‘full’ evaluation of the pilot. The move will be seen as a considerable climbdown by the LSC. Responding to ...
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Enforcing contact to benefit children, not punish the parents
Do not think that the amendments to the Children Act (CA) relating to contact orders made by the Children and Adoption Act 2006 (the 2006 act), with effect from 8 December 2008, are about punishing parents for failing to comply with contact orders. Rather, the reforms are to ensure that ...
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Opportunity knocks for the bar to work with solicitors
With legal aid rates squeezed and the ‘threat’ of increased competition from the CPS and solicitor higher court advocates, the bar ought to be looking keenly at survival strategies. It is surprising, therefore, that the bar has been so slow either to seize the opportunities presented ...
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Protocol sets out attorney general’s role in prosecutions
The attorney general, Baroness Scotland QC, has published a new protocol setting out her relationship with the prosecuting bodies she superintends. The document outlines the roles and responsibilities of the attorney general and clarifies the extent of her role in individual prosecution cases. It also underlines ...
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Conveyancers asked to sign up to combined Santander panel
Conveyancing firms on the former Abbey and Alliance & Leicester (A&L) panels are being asked to sign up to a combined Santander UK panel with new terms and conditions. Following negotiations with the Law Society, a letter is being sent initially to all solicitors on the ...
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Professional negligence claims soar as solicitors redeployed to new areas
Professional negligence claims against solicitors are soaring, with one City firm reporting a 158% surge in cases over the past 12 months. And experts are warning that worse may be to come in the downturn, as solicitors are moved to areas with which they are unfamiliar.
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Archbishop Desmond Tutu praises ‘vital role’ of volunteer lawyers
Lawyers who volunteer for development projects have ‘demolished the stereotype of lawyers being money-grabbing’, Archbishop Desmond Tutu (pictured, left, with attorney general Baroness Scotland, right) said this week. Speaking at an event organised by legal charity Advocates for International Development, he praised the legal profession’s work in providing free assistance ...
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Tailored approach
I write with reference to the letters from Charlotte Collier and Graeme Hydari (see [2009] Gazette, 2 July, 9).
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LSB appoints chairwoman of consumer panel
The Legal Services Board has appointed Dr Dianne Hayter as chairwoman of its independent consumer panel. The panel, set up by the Legal Services Act 2007, will advise the LSB on the interests of all legal services users, including individual and business consumers. LSB chairman David Edmonds said: ‘The panel’s ...
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Anti-money laundering rules should be relaxed for solicitors
The anti-money laundering (AML) reporting regime should be relaxed for solicitors and others in the private sector, a House of Lords committee concluded today. Failure to report a suspicious transaction which is based on a minor criminal offence should not be prosecuted, according to the House ...
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Government response to damages consultation dubbed ‘anti-climax’ by lawyers
Solicitors dubbed the government’s response to the Law on Damages consultation an anti-climax this week, two years after its original deadline. John McQuater, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said: ‘In all my years of practice, I can rarely remember waiting so long for ...
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Legal aid Live Aid
We know times are hard for lawyers, but it comes to something when they have to turn to busking to make a living. Two tuneful solicitors, Denis Cameron and Basil Preuveneers, plan to do just that this autumn – not because they are actually strapped ...