All News articles – Page 1731
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Freedom of information: cabinet minutes, audit reports, BBC appeal
Probably the most controversial decision under the Freedom of Information Act was published by the Information Tribunal on 27 January 2009 (Cabinet Office and Dr Christopher Lamb v Information Commissioner (EA/2008/0024 & 0029))...
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Jack Straw announces crackdown on ‘irresponsible’ employment lawyers
Justice secretary Jack Straw has announced a crackdown on ‘irresponsible’ employment lawyers who he says are exploiting vulnerable clients by taking a large proportion of the damages they win in ‘excessive legal fees’. The move to curb the use of contingency fee agreements in tribunals – ...
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France to press ahead with Clementi-style reforms
Clementi-style reforms of France’s legal landscape are to go ahead next year despite a retreat on a major element, the reforms’ architect said this week. Jean-Michel Darrois, a company law specialist and head of Paris firm Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier, headed a commission of academics, ...
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Trebling of compensation fund levy on SRA agenda
The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority will decide today whether to recommend a 313% increase in compensation fund contributions in 2009/10. SRA officers have proposed that solicitors holding clients’ money contribute £470, up from £150 last year. Last month, the regulator predicted that practitioners ...
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Solicitors doubt judges’ impartiality in advocate appraisals
Solicitor-advocates have issued a warning that declining faith in judges’ impartiality in respect of different arms of the profession may imperil plans to assess publicly funded defence advocates. The Legal Services Commission is testing a process to ‘quality assure’ all publicly funded criminal defence advocates, both ...
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Law society calls for government to act on HIP fees
The Law Society has called on the government to regulate the home information pack (HIP) industry to protect home buyers from secret referral fees paid to estate agents. Following a claim by a Channel 4 News investigation that pack prices could be inflated by more than ...
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Eversheds reports 27% dip in equity partner profit
National firm Eversheds today became the second leading law firm to post financial results for 2008/09, reporting a 27% fall in average profits per equity partner (PEP) to £404,000. City firm CMS Cameron McKenna, the other firm to release results so far, also reported a fall in PEP. ...
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The 2009 London Legal Sponsored Walk
The 2009 London Legal Sponsored Walk raised a record £380,000 to support law centres across the country. Among 4,000 walkers were 50 judges, 12 City firm senior partners, the lord chief justice, master of the rolls, attorney general and shadow attorney general, and the director of public prosecutions. Lord Justice ...
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SRA rethinks compensation fund levy for 2009/10
The Solicitors Regulation Authority board has asked officials to rethink this year’s proposed compensation fund contributions. As the Gazette reports today, a paper considered by the board at its monthly public meeting, in Birmingham, recommended that solicitors holding client money contribute £470 in 2009/10, up ...
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Why lunch with the partners is good for marketing
One of the firms I work closely with has a fairly rare management quirk for a firm of its size. It provides the partners (and finance director) with lunch each day.
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Hot under the collar over gender equality
The Fawcett Society’s claim that the criminal justice system is ‘institutionally sexist’ is a shocking soundbite, but for many it will not sound a discordant note.
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Law Society condemns best-value tendering pilot
Des Hudson, the Law Society’s chief executive, has added his voice to criticism of plans by the Legal Services Commission to award contracts for legal aid work in police stations by a process of best-value tendering (BVT). In a speech to the Criminal Law Solicitors ...
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Justice minister steps down pending expenses probe
Justice minister Shahid Malik stepped down today amid the furore over MPs’ expenses. This morning, The Daily Telegraph claimed that Malik paid discounted rent at his main home in Dewsbury – which he pays for himself – of less than £100 per week, while at the ...
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Sentencing
Causing death by dangerous driving – Mobile telephones – Mitigation – Undue leniency Attorney general’s reference (no 17 of 2009), sub nom R v Phillipa Curtis: CA (Crim Div) (Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, Mr Justice Lloyd-Jones, Mr Justice ...
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Regulation that will have the respect of the regulated
by Robert Heslett is vice-president of the Law Society Lord Hunt’s interim report was delivered earlier this month, immediately ahead of the launch of his roadshows across England and Wales.
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Memory lane
New appointments as Lord Chancellor, Attorney General as well as Solicitor-General. Also changes to taxes in the 1969 Budget statement. The Law Society’s Gazette, 16 May 1979 ...
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What the Office of the Public Guardian is doing to help you
by Martin John public guardian and chief executive of Office of the Public Guardian The Office of the Public Guardian’s chief executive Martin John acknowledges that people have had problems dealing with the body, but here lays out what he is doing to renew the OPG
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Madoff fraud prompts rush of securities lawsuits
Convicted tycoon Bernard Madoff’s ponzi fraud spawned 30% of securities lawsuits worldwide in the first quarter of 2009, research has indicated. Of the 169 new securities lawsuits filed in Q1 this year, 50 related to the Madoff fraud, according to business data company Advisen. ...
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Floored strategy
One bright idea for helping the chancellor out of his little difficulty with public finances is for public bodies to share accommodation. With efficiency and cultural synergy in mind, what could be more logical than co-locating the police and Crown Prosecution Service? It turns out it is not as easy ...
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NOMS IT under fire from MPs
The director general of the National Offender Management Service, Phil Wheatley, was taken to task by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee last week over the service’s IT programme. Edward Leigh MP, the committee’s chairman, told Wheatley that a National Audit Office report on his ...