All News articles – Page 1746
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News
Bahrain to open alternative dispute resolution centre
Bahrain is to open an alternative dispute resolution centre to conduct international arbitrations, following an agreement formalised at the Bahrain embassy in London today. Bahrain’s Ministry of Justice signed an operating agreement with the American Arbitration Association (AAA) to establish the Bahrain chamber for dispute ...
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Barnardo’s report claims children wrongly taken into custody
Around 170 children between the ages of 12 and 14 may have been wrongly put behind bars in 2007-08, a report published by children’s charity Barnardo’s claimed today. Government policy states that children aged 14 and younger should only be put into custody if they have ...
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Going paperless is easier than you think, and good for your firm
Lawyers can get very hung up on the need to keep paper copies of everything. It’s just not necessary!
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Speaking out against injustice
With the myriad of domestic challenges facing the profession at the moment – from economic downturn to the potential impact of the legal aid reforms and the regulatory challenges flowing from the Legal Services Act, it is good to see that the Law Society has not closed its eyes to ...
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Belgium in the summertime is the perfect holiday spot (for lawyers, too)
You may think that Belgium is no more than a short and tedious motorway journey to somewhere more interesting. You are wrong.
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Fox Hayes £1m FSA fine still unpaid
The Financial Services Authority has yet to recover a penny of the £1m fine it levied against collapsed Leeds firm Fox Hayes for its part in a £15m ‘boiler room’ fraud, the Gazette can reveal. The City regulator fined Fox Hayes in February for failing ...
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Information commissioner opens up access to property search data
The information commissioner’s decision to allow free viewing of property search data held by local authorities has sparked fears that unregulated ‘cowboy companies’ will flood the search market. In a guidance note, the commissioner said that because most search data held by local authorities was environmental, ...
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Class actions in employment tribunals called for by government research
Unpublished government research obtained by the Gazette has called for opt-out class actions to be piloted in employment tribunals, so as to deal with the thousands of discrimination and equal pay cases clogging up the system. The report by Lexicon Ltd, whose publication has been delayed ...
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Provision gap in the east after East Anglia law centres close
East Anglia is currently without a single legal aid law centre after Cambridge Law Centre and Huntingdon Law Centre, the only two centres in East Anglia, closed down after their parent charity ceased trading. Advice for Life, the charity that ran both law centres, stopped trading ...
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Civil legal aid contracts delayed by Legal Services Commission
The Legal Services Commission has delayed tendering for civil legal aid contracts by six months, in a move described as a ‘mixed blessing’ by lawyers. The delay means that family solicitors will have to wait longer for the new rules, which will ensure they are paid ...
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A question of authority
I have just read your article on claims management companies (see [2009] Gazette, 30 July 3). I note that Kevin Rousell appears to believe that the majority of CMCs are trying to ‘comply’ with the referral code.
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Crown Prosecution Service does not benefit from an ‘overall vision’
The Crown Prosecution Service must be a depressing place to be at the moment. Criticisms of the way it functions have been coming fast and furious over the past few weeks.
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PII bills to stay flat for big firms, but rise sharply for small
Professional indemnity insurance (PII) premiums for the top 100 law firms look likely to remain flat for 2009/10 despite a slight increase in claims, insurance broker Marsh said today. Insurance bills for small firms, however, are likely to rise significantly. Marsh, which claims it brokes PII ...
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Legal Services Board seeks powers to impose huge fines on regulators
The Legal Services Board could punish the Law Society and other regulators with multi-million-pound fines if they fail to meet its regulatory objectives, under proposals published this week. The plans, which would give the LSB powers to fine the Law Society up to £28m for non-compliance, ...
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What brokers and insurers forecast for the PII renewal deadline
This is the time of year when professional indemnity insurers and brokers start warning solicitors that the market is going to harden and they had better smarten up their act. Get your proposals in nice and early if you want the best deals, has been the message; a message that ...
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Co-op launches legal services promotion campaign
The Co-operative has launched a high-profile campaign to promote its legal services to the 17 million weekly shoppers in its food stores. The campaign, which includes in-store radio, till screen displays and door-to-door leafleting, will last nine weeks and aims to promote awareness of the range ...
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Major third-party funding case fails in House of Lords
A major negligence case that first brought third-party funding into the public eye was struck out by the House of Lords last week at a cost of around £2.5m to the litigation funder. IM Litigation Funding admitted that the cost of losing the case, which it ...
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Celebrity fever
As Obiter reported last week, lawyers spend more on frocks and smocks than almost any other professionals. So all those readers with wardrobes stuffed full of gladrags should get themselves along to the glitzy charity ball being organised by trainee solicitor Kimberley Shields at Laytons in Guildford this month, in ...
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Conveyancing must move toward technological change... Or else
by Timothy Hill, technology policy adviser for the Law SocietyThe recent warning from the British Retail Consortium that high streets could reach a ‘tipping point’, beyond which they will no longer be viable, highlights an important question.
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Clarity on claims
A recent editorial refers to the claims management regulator placing blame for malpractice firmly on solicitors (see [2009] Gazette, 30 July, 10).