All News articles – Page 1729
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News
Court rules on legal privilege in Prudential case
Accountants and lawyers should operate on a ‘level playing field’ when it comes to disclosing legal advice on certain issues, a High Court judge said last week.
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Unregulated will writers failing clients, says Chancery Lane
Unregulated will writers are providing the public with unenforceable wills while charging for legal services they are not trained or regulated to provide, the Law Society claimed this week. Solicitors specialising in will writing told the Society they have been handed invalid wills drafted by unregulated ...
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‘Super injunctions’ come under fire from senior judge
MPs were preparing to debate the impact of so-called super-injunctions on parliamentary proceedings as the Gazette went to press. This followed last week’s media feeding frenzy that saw renowned libel lawyers Carter-Ruck accused of trying to gag parliament on behalf of a client, the oil ...
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Lord Woolf raps solicitors for CPR failings
Lord Woolf (pictured) has blamed lawyers, the judiciary and government for blunting the impact of his 10-year-old reforms to the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR). The retired law lord, addressing members of the London Solicitors Litigation Association last week, said lawyers had ‘made an industry’ of some ...
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Lending credibility
I write on behalf of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) in response to the letter from Alan Tunkel published in the Gazette on 1 October.
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Criminal law roundup: more than just the usual suspects
Many suspects now surrender themselves to the police when it is known that they are subject to an investigation. They attend the police station as volunteers. Police culture is still deeply committed to making an arrest at that point. However, every arrest must be justified under section 24 of the ...
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Diary of a redundancy (part three)
You punch in the number of the charity. ‘It’s a kind offer,’ you say into the telephone, and then hesitate. The charity has offered you a job as an adviser. The money is a third of what you were pulling in as a proper solicitor before those born-out-of-wedlock partners made ...
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Winter of our discontent
As any lawyer knows, statutes are not normally up there with a Dan Brown novel when it comes to page-turning over-the-top drama. Let’s face it, they tend to be pretty dull. But it turns out the law has not always been such a snore – it has simply lost its ...
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Woolf at the door
The ‘statutorily senile’ Lord Woolf, to quote his own words, entertained a capacity crowd last week with a lecture to the London Solicitors Litigation Association. The former lord chief justice was on fine form, Obiter is pleased to report. Spare no sympathy for criminal lawyers in portakabins, he said, referring ...
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Land Registry slashes one in five jobs
The Land Registry, which lost £130m last year, announced plans to cut 1,500 jobs – more than one if five of its workforce – and shut five of its 17 offices. Offices in Peterborough, Portsmouth, Croydon, Stevenage and Tunbridge Wells will close and other changes will ...
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Supreme follies
Having spent the afternoon hearing how the British government is undermining the right to custodial legal advice by reducing lawyers’ fees, Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, took to the stage to cheer up delegates at the Law Society’s conference on legal advice at the police station last week.
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Memory lane
Law Society’s Gazette, October 1919 Solicitor, practising in country market town, about to article his son (17) would ...
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Sweet plinth
Aspiring barrister Melanie Smith (pictured) has found a novel way of standing out from the crowd when it comes to pupillage applications. The bar vocational course student at London’s College of Law took to the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square to recite famous speeches, including the defence counsel’s closing speech ...
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New legal aid rates for family advocacy
The Ministry of Justice today announced new fixed advocacy rates for family legal aid, which harmonise the fees paid to solicitors and barristers. The new structure follows a lengthy consultation process and will see hourly rates replaced with standard fees. Barristers and solicitors will be paid ...
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Venture capitalists need tempting, not confusing
There’s an interesting debate on the issue of investment in solicitors continuing on the Law Society’s LinkedIn group. I think it’s worth looking at the issues here too.The basic question that started the debate is ‘what impact will private equity have on the legal sector?’
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Money Claim Online and getting tough on debts
Sometimes, when calling in debts from friends, I mimic a silver screen drug lord calling in a debt from a business associate, promising a bloodbath of gun violence should he fail to pay up. It’s more like an unintentionally comic Tony Montana-in-Scarface type of threat, rather than a coolly menacing ...
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Law Society warning on unregulated will writers
Unregulated will writers are causing havoc among members of the public and in some cases are failing to provide people with valid wills, the Law Society claimed today. According to the Society, many solicitors specialising in will writing, trusts and probate have been handed invalid and ...
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Oops, another EU lawyer training proposal
This is how policy comes about.I was scanning what I assumed was an innocuous resolution from the European Parliament on the future five-year programme for justice and home affairs (the so-called Stockholm Programme).
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‘Radical reform’ planned for assigned risks pool
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is soon to launch a consultation on ‘radical reform’ of the assigned risks pool, the Gazette can reveal. It is understood that proposals for consultation could include changes to the conditions for entry or even the demise of the pool. ...